


Sleight of Hand

by elissastillstands



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 02, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Episode: s03e12-13 The Coming of Arthur, F/F, Flashbacks, Friendship, Magic Revealed, Original Character(s), POV Gwen (Merlin)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27750199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elissastillstands/pseuds/elissastillstands
Summary: The castle watches. It listens. And one day, it will feast on all their bones.Gwen has spent all her life under the shadow of the butcher's rule. Now, in the wake of Morgana's disappearance, the lower town struggles with Uther's escalating tyranny as rumor grows of a sorcerer's kingdom rising in a distant corner of Albion. It falls to Gwen to come to terms with what it means to call Camelot her home, and what she will do to save it.
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 36
Collections: Merlin Holidays 2020





	1. Heroes and Fools

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Atlanta_Black](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanta_Black/gifts).



> Atlanta_Black, it was a positive delight to write for you! I saw that you had Gwen/Morgana on your list, with the two of them refusing to hurt each other no matter what happens, and from those words this story grew. I tried to incorporate elements from across your requests as well (Merlin not shying away from his magic, telling Morgana about his abilities, and training with the Druids; a magic reveal which puts Arthur on the spot), but this fic ran away from me in the end, in unexpected ways. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> With greatest thanks to Anya, for a thorough and insightful beta on a fic that kept sprawling beyond its bounds. 
> 
> This story is first and foremost about Gwen. It takes place in a loose Season 2 setting but incorporates some elements of 3.12-3.13 "The Coming of Arthur." It is rated T for discussion of canon-typical violence, including torture and execution.

Camelot at Midsummer is a bard’s dream of the season, leaping bonfires and red pennants and barrels of cool mulled wine, enough to run the taverns dry. Gwen jams her hip against the barrel of wine in front of her and hooks her hand around the back, tilting it forward. The last of the wine, thick with dregs, spatters out the spigot, half-filling her flagon. She sets the barrel back down with a thump.

“This one’s empty!” she calls. She picks up her flagon and yanks the spigot out of the barrel before moving onto the next one.

A kitchen hand slips into the pantry behind her, rolling the empty barrel out. The girl’s calls for the pages to get out of the way fade into the din of the rest of the kitchen, as the cook and her staff try to keep up with the feast in full swing. Gwen opens the next barrel and pushes the spigot into place. The wine that flows out is clean and deep, the color of blackberries. It’ll dilute the dregs from the last barrel. 

With any luck, the high table will be so far into their cups that they won’t notice the dregs at all. 

Gwen fills another pitcher to the brim before leaving the pantry and venturing back into the kitchen. The main room is utter mayhem. Two kitchen hands are struggling to take a roast of mutton off the main spit; three more are slicing the remaining haunch of the previous roast and throwing the meat onto the servers’ plates, who scurry out towards the hall the moment their platters are filled. One of the saucier’s apprentices careens into her, splashing hot broth onto her apron. Her wine doesn’t spill, but it is a near thing. The boy goes pale at the sight of her and drops into a bow, mumbling his apologies, and she hastily reassures him before he can spill the rest of his sauce and sends him on his way.

The head cook sends Gwen a brief, relieved smile when she catches sight of her. She is standing at her table and arranging sweetmeats in neat spirals. The candied dates and citrus peels glisten with syrup, soaked with enough fine sugar that they are worth their weight in silver. 

“It’s sheer madness up there,” Hilda calls to Gwen, once she has come within shouting distance. Her hands never stop their practiced motions, laying out her bounty of sugar. She has been making sweetmeats for the Pendragons since before Gwen was born. “We’re barely keeping up.”

Gwen sets her two pitchers on a spare tray and wipes up the spillage with a rag. “They’ll wind down soon enough, once the dancing starts.”

“Aye,” Hilda hums. “Then we can rest.”

Gwen snorts, and Hilda glances at her, her face softening. “For tonight, at least,” the cook adds. “Thank you for lending a hand, my lady.”

Three of the servers had begged off duty, rheumy-eyed from the heat-induced hayfever which sweeps through the lower town every summer. Another had gotten her fingers crushed in a mortar that morning. Two more badly scalded their hands earlier in the afternoon, and while they could have all been ordered to come back and serve at the feast—Hilda was neither that strict nor that cruel. Gwen’s years of serving food and wine at feasts might have formally ended when she was named Morgana’s head maid and chamberlain, but she was still glad to help when Hilda asked her.

“Get these up to the high table,” Hilda says, handing her one of the sweet-laden trays. “And do one more round of drinks, and then you can end your shift for the night.”

“Are you sure?” Gwen maneuvers the platter with the pitchers into the crook of her right arm and takes the sweets with her free hand. “I can keep going, if you need—give some of the girls an early break—”

Hilda laughs. “They’ll take an early break anyways, whether or not I give it to them. As well they should.” She winks at Gwen as she sets the last of the sweetmeats on a plate. “Enjoy the rest of your night, my lady. None of us can stand up there, so you can let us live a little through you.”

Gwen feels a hot flush creep up her cheeks as she turns away. She can’t even blame it on the wine—she hasn’t had the time to drink this evening, much less find herself sodden. Behind her, Hilda’s laugh melts into the chattering din of her domain. The whole of the castle staff had thrown an impromptu feast for Gwen when she was named the chamberlain of Morgana’s household two years ago. They procured a crown of violets, which was promptly plopped on her head, and sat her down next to one of the hearths. That whole evening, as the wine flowed freely, they called her Lady Gwen and implored her in happy, exuberant jest to remember them as she supped at the high table. 

Few of the promises of that evening lasted into the next morning. Even fewer of them lasted into the present. There had been no delighted feast for her when she was named Arthur’s head maidservant a mere sennight after Morgana was gone. Those who knew the truth were too busy grieving with her to celebrate.Those who did not know—her luck, it seems, lasted too well for them.

Gwen would feel worse, if they were nothing but happy. Their bitterness is at least something she can understand.

She makes her way through the darkened castle by sheer rote. The narrow servants’ corridors open out into the great hall, and into a clamor loud enough to make the rowdy kitchens seem quiet. There is smoke everywhere, smudging the priceless tapestries which keep the hall warm and thick enough to make the ceiling seem to recede into ever-reaching darkness. The floor under foot is strewn with hay and fresh rushes, which do nothing to conceal the food and drink already spilled there. Torches throw lively shadows over the top of the noble feasters, who are seated at long tables draped in royal colors. The high ladies and lords talk and laugh among themselves, unheeding of the servants who scurry around the periphery of the hall, renewing the bounty in front of them without being prompted. 

The high table is set on a dais, and Gwen picks her way up those steps, keeping both her trays balanced. The first plate of any course goes to the king, and this applies doubly to the luxuries—spiced liquors, strange and marvelous game, fine fruits laden with finer sweetness. Gwen drops her gaze to the floor the moment she comes up to the king, bowing deeply as she presents him with the tray of dates. Her outstretched hand trembles, and she has to scrabble at the bottom of the platter to keep it from dropping. 

“Your sweetmeats, majesty,” she says. Nothing shows in her voice.

“Put it on the table.”

Gwen straightens at the command and obeys. When she finally lifts her head to look at the king, he isn’t looking in her direction, too busy saying something to his son, his brow furrowed and mouth pursed. He likely hadn’t even looked in her direction when she announced the course.

All the better for her, then. Gwen often imagines that the king’s gaze scrapes like a dull knife. Other times, she thinks it must cut as a blade—because that is what it means, to draw his notice and his ire, to be slaughtered by iron and flame, to be judged and found guilty. She cannot hear him speak without remembering what he has done. The sounds of his voice makes her shake, and not from fear alone. Her reverent bows and lowered gaze in Uther’s presence are almost more for her sake than his; Gwen fears that should she look him in the face, he would see the truth of it in her eyes.

When she was in her fourteenth year, she had spent the summer in the kitchen as a scullery maid. Her station had been next to the butcher’s, cleaning the butcher’s bloodied hooks and knives. She knows what it takes to cleave through bones and marrow. And she thinks about it, sometimes, when she is too tired to pretend to be ignorant of anger—how little it would take, to make him bleed. 

Uther is only a man. As was her father. And as Uther had proven when left her with an aching, hateful hollowness in her days where her father should be—men die.

She pours the fragrant wine into his cup, and her hands do not so much as tremble. 

Gwen backs away from the dais and turns, once it is safe to turn. Arthur glances up from his seat at his father’s elbow. His voice is soft as he thanks her for refilling his goblet.

“Will you be joining me?” he asks.

Gwen’s gut roils at the very thought of it. Even if she was allowed to eat at the high table, she never would. No matter how fine the wine, her gullet would never manage to swallow the drink under the king’s gaze. Weighing even more heavily on her mind is the chair at Arthur’s right hand, now occupied by a council lord in velvet robes. The man might as well be a ghost to Gwen—she looks at him and sees an empty space, and yet another ghost: her lady, who should be there, glorious in the torchlight, clad in pink and red and gold for the season. She should be here. She should be here, laughing, hair gleaming with the richness of a raven’s wing, and Gwen’s fingers ache from the memory of her curls and the hair-pins which held her careful braids in place, and of the hours after the feast, when she would draw each pin out and let Morgana’s hair fall around them both. 

“I’ll see you tonight, my lord,” Gwen murmurs.

She hears Uther scoff beneath his breath. Good. Let the king think her nothing more than the maid in his son’s bed. The less he knows, the longer she will keep breathing.

Gwen keeps her gaze averted as she works her way around the high table, serving the highest denizens of the castle. Camelot is hosting delegations from Mercia and Essetir for Midsummer, and the lords from these embassies do not even look at her, too busy with their muttered critiques of the latest dishes to pay her much heed as she fills their glasses to the brim. They glance first to the pitchers on her tray, then to the sauce stain on her skirt, and then their eyes slide away from her entirely. The lords from Camelot, though—they stare. Gwen keeps her head bowed, but she can still feel them.

There is a scant finger’s width of wine left at the bottom of her flagon when she finishes her circuit. Gwen retreats to a shadowed patch of wall, stretching her back out surreptitiously. She had forgotten how difficult it could be, to keep her gaze and stature lower than that of a half-sodden lord or lady. When she straightens, she looks over to the other maid huddled against the wall—one of the new girls, barely far enough into the castle’s service to hold an earthenware pitcher at a feast. The girl’s eyes are fixed on the torches. She looks miserable.

Brigit and all the gods above. She looks like Sefa.

Gwen swallows past the tightness in her throat. “To the new year,” she says to the girl with a wan grin, toasting her with her flagon.

The maid starts. Her voice is too soft for Gwen to hear it, but Gwen can nevertheless see her mouth shape the words, _My lady—_

Gwen quickly shakes her head. “It’s alright.” She inches closer, sliding along the wall. “You can break for the night now, if you want. I know feasts can be a little—” Gwen trails off and gestures at the smoky hall vaguely.

“My shift doesn’t end until I run out of wine,” the maid mumbles a little bit louder.

“In that case—” Gwen smiles, lifting her flagon to her lips and drinking. The maid’s eyes widen until they’re round as spindle whorls, and then she shrugs and gulps down the last of the wine in her pitcher in turn. 

“To the shortest night,” she tells Gwen with a grin.

With a bob that might be a hasty bow, the girl turns away, vanishing behind the tapestry which covered the servants’ entry to the great hall. Gwen’s toast dies unvoiced on her lips. A scullery boy hurries up and takes Gwen’s empty pitchers back to the kitchens, and Gwen wipes her hands on her apron, grimacing as her sticky fingers drag against the congealing sauce. 

She’s not going to stand by the high table in a dirty kirtle. They stare at her enough without the stains.

\-----

She’s looking up at the castle when Judith finds her. The stones of the turrets are half-hidden in the gloom of the sky, pennants flowing from the windows in rivulets of Pendragon red. It is too dark for the color to show properly—the hue looks merely black now, a stain against the bone-pale stone. The bonfires of the lower town’s celebrations throw flickering, vital shadows onto the looming walls about them.

The castle watches. It listens. And one day, it will feast on all their bones. 

“I’d offer you a mark for your thoughts, but I doubt they’re worth that much.”

Gwen turns at the familiar voice, barely loud enough to be heard above the shouting and singing behind them. “And a happy Midsummer to you as well, Judith.”

The woman behind her quirks an eyebrow. Judith is the leather-worker's apprentice, a small woman with hooded eyes and warm black hair which catches the firelight, tied in a messy knot at the nape of her neck. Her jaw is set square and mulish, which is no different from her usual expression. When they first met, Judith called Gwen _lady_ , blank-faced and curt. It took months after their initial acquaintance for her to feel comfortable enough with Gwen to show her discomfort openly.

“How’s your mother doing?” Gwen asks, after several moments’ silence.

Judith huffs out a small laugh. “She is well. Keeps asking me when you’ll place the next order.” Her mother is the town spinner who takes commissions from the crown; Gwen had known her before she knew her daughter. “Business in town is slow right now.”

“I’ll do it soon. Autumn’s coming up.” Gwen coughs into her hand—from the smoke, she reckons. “And—Imogen?”

“She works for you, my lady.” The corners of Judith’s mouth twitch, the stiffness fading from her shoulders as she steps a little closer to Gwen. “You probably see her more than I do.”

She loops her arm around Gwen’s shoulders, and Gwen hugs her back, unspeakably glad to have someone to hold. Gwen had also known Judith’s lover before she knew Judith herself. Imogen is a seamstress, who had worked in Morgana’s household before it was disbanded in the wake of Morgana’s absence. She is part of the greater castle household now, mending bed linens and knights’ overkirtles. They wave at each other when they cross paths in the hallways but never have time to tarry. There’s always something else to be doing, somewhere else to be, while the castle watches. 

“And how are you, my lady?” Judith asks softly. 

Gwen laughs. The sound peters away as they both stare up at the walls. “Just as I always am,” she says at last. “As well as I can be. I managed to serve the king a plate of sweetmeats without getting the guards called down on my head, which means that I'm lucky. I was just thinking—”

She trails off, unsure of what she can even say that will encompass all her myriad thoughts in that moment. Judith nods in understanding nonetheless. “It's the festival, isn't it?” she asks Gwen. "And all the dancing. It makes you—"

Judith doesn't finish her sentence, and Gwen comes up with a bounty of words she can use within the break. It makes her remember—it makes her want, grieve, ache like a broken bone half-healed. "It happened last Midwinter," Gwen says instead. "At the festival. When the year turned." She smiles and feels it crack the moment her lips curl, brittle and tired. They say that how one fares on Midwinter is an omen for the rest of the year. "Only appropriate, I suppose."

"And not for you alone, my lady; I can tell you that much." Judith lets go of Gwen but still stays close. Her voice gentles. “And don't forget—you saved them, Gwen. Take a little heart in that.”

The rebuttal leaps onto Gwen’s tongue—that she didn’t save them, she has no way of knowing if they are safe, she has no idea whether or not their lungs still breathe. If they are dead, bones in a shallow wayside grave, she would be as much to blame as the kingdom which forced them to flee. But Judith sounds hopeful, as she so rarely does, and it is Midsummer. The kingdom’s grandest festival, the brightest day and shortest night of the year, when they revel to their utmost before the dying months come down on them.

For tonight, they can believe.

Gwen bids Judith farewell, letting her slip away between the bonfires and food stalls, back to her family and love. She takes one more look up at the bleeding eyes of the windows far above her before she ducks back into the winding halls. The corridors are mostly empty at this hour, with the castle’s staff divided between their duties and the lower town and the nobility either gone to bed or in a drunken stupor in the halls. Gwen takes the stairs to the prince’s chambers, her feet dragging against the stone. The guard outside his door nods sleepily at her as she slips through. This is all she has now. She sold the house attached to the forge to Simon, the new smith, when it ceased to be her home, and she could no longer bear to live with the ghost of her father lingering at thresholds and windowsills, his gentle smile too fresh in her memory for her to do anything but see him. Her lady is gone as well, and so she lives in a small room off of Arthur’s antechamber, barely large enough for a cot and a small wooden chest. 

Inside, the candles are already lit. Arthur is sitting at his window seat, polishing a dagger with quick, precise swipes of the cloth. His face is downcast and stony. There is a plate on his desk, laden with food from the high table: spiced venison and boar tartlets and pepper-sauced chicken piquant enough to make her want to sneeze, and a quarter of the tray of sweetmeats Gwen had brought up from the kitchens besides, their sugar syrup still drying.

“You didn’t have to,” she tells him.

Arthur shrugs, not lifting his gaze from his dagger. “I figured you wouldn’t eat. You haven’t stayed a feast all the way through since—” He trails off and then shakes himself. “And here I thought I could never find a servant worse than Merlin.”

Gwen rolls her eyes as she starts on the food, but it is fond, and more than a little grateful. His voice had wavered when he said Merlin’s name. Half a year ago, he wouldn’t even have been able to say it from anger. 

She pushes the half-eaten plate in his direction. “You should eat too,” she tells him.

Arthur’s head snaps up from his dagger. “It’s food from my table, Guinevere,” he says with a curl of his lips, a pale echo of the haughty pride she once remembered from him. “What makes you think I still need to eat?”

His plate had been clean when she came by the high table towards the end of the feast, too clean to have been used. “Call it instinct.” Gwen helps herself to the wine on his desk. 

He huffs and then sets his dagger aside. They share the sweetmeats, hunched over his desk. In the courtyard below them, the fires burn, wavering through the glass like hands and tongues. 

\-----

_“You should be more careful,” Gwen says as she steps into Morgana’s rooms._

_The fondness in her voice belies her chiding words, and from the arch tone of her reply, Morgana knows it as well. “I locked the door,” she tells Gwen._

_“Then how could I still get in?”_

_“Because I would never lock a door to you.”_

_Gwen cannot help but smile at that. Morgana is seated at her window alcove, shielded from view by the narrow antechamber. Merlin sits across from her, slouched in his chair. The table between them is littered with old codices and the playing cards they use to practice Morgana’s scrying. Bands of translucent color swirl in the air around the table, shimmering like an oil spill._

_“We’re trying to figure out a travelling spell,” Merlin explains._

_Morgana is too busy scowling at an opened codex to elaborate, jabbing at the page with one of her reed pens. “Are you sure this is an actual transport spell?” she asks. “Or is it a prayer to the Goddess, or—I don’t know—one of Gaius’ recipe for a boil-cure that got a little out of hand?”_

_“Hells, it might as well be,” Merlin groans, leaning his chair back on its back legs. “I looked for any I could find when you mentioned them, and this was the only one in all of Gaius’ collections. But I can’t make heads or tails of the incantation.”_

_Gwen takes her seat at the table and squints down at the book in question. The pages are covered edge-to-edge in a scrawled, crooked hand, written in a tongue Gwen only recognizes from Merlin’s sessions with Morgana. Merlin, who has what scant knowledge Gaius deems appropriate to grant him, has the most understanding of the words on the page, but the old physician isn’t aware of their meetings, much less what they are trying to do. Though she bears no blessing from the Goddess, Gwen has as good a chance as Morgana at divining the meaning of the text._

_She has known about Morgana’s magic from the start. It was difficult to turn a blind eye, when her lady’s nightmares started to become true in her waking hours—and even more difficult when they became lovers, and their bedding caught fire whenever Morgana woke up screaming. On the days when Morgana was too frayed to keep her magic in line, Gwen drew the eyes of others away from her lady: tripping while holding torches to explain the burn marks on the curtains and the broken glass, spilling wine to distract from glimmer in Morgana’s eyes._

_Merlin was another story. She’s had her suspicions about him ever since Sir Lancelot came and killed the griffin with his aid, but her suspicions were not confirmed until she came in one day to Morgana’s chambers and saw the two of them holding hands, a candle glowing fiery green between them._

_Merlin caught sight of her and jumped to his feet._ This isn’t what it looks like, he yelped.

 _Gwen raised her eyebrow._ So you aren’t teaching Morgana how to control her magic?

 _Merlin went pale._ Uh—maybe—this is what it looks like? _he ventures in a shaky voice, slowly backing away from the table._

Ah. _Gwen walked towards Merlin, crossing her arms._ So it’ll be you, me, and swords at dawn, then.

 _Merlin looked bewildered, eyes darting every which way. Gwen felt like her heart would thunder out of her chest for him then, so she yanked him into a tight embrace and did not relent until his arms came up and he hugged her back. She told him that she would yell at him later about caution and subtlety and communication and his lack of self-preservation, and felt herself lighten as he laughed. The last thing she whispered to him before she pulled away was,_ thank you.

_Morgana and Merlin have been meeting each other thrice a sennight for the past three months to practice their magic together. They spend most of that time arguing with one another. “It’s not complicated enough to be a sigil,” Merlin is saying now. “Chalk and ochre are the most common drafting mediums, and chalk sigils need more lines as routes to articulate the magic—”_

_“—but this can’t be a gesture, either,” Morgana counters. “Transport spells are meant to be fast and this would be like trying to draw a map of Albion every time you want to go somewhere—”_

_“—you don’t use transport spells to go to the market, Morgana, you only use them—”_

_“—when it’s down to you and the gods you believe in, I know, Merlin, it’s why it comes with a huge warning about the power drain. You’ve told me,” Morgana huffs. “Repeatedly. But if it’s meant for emergencies, that only makes the speed more important—”_

_They'll be here for a while yet. Gwen pulls the codex closer to her while the other two squabble. Merlin has never been shy about speaking up against his supposed betters—Arthur had learned that within the first ten minutes of his employment, and it had taken Merlin and Morgana approximately half a candlemark into their first practice session to fall into perpetual disagreement. They rarely even have the time to use their books._

_There are two diagrams of interlacing lines on the facing pages, unfurling like flowers of ink. Little arrows are drawn along the lines, showing the movement the caster should follow—each symbol is an inverse of the other, then, and they both have a red symbol in the middle, disconnected from the rest of the drawing. At the bottom of the right-hand page, there is another red symbol, and a drawing of a series of interlocking circles—or a pebble, given the shading in the drawing, some object—or a large polished jewel, or maybe a snuff bottle of some sort, small and round, with a single opening at the top. Gwen squints at the image. It’s a container. Meant to hold something._

_Too complicated to be a casting motion. Too simple to be a chalk sigil. Comes with a power drain. It’s a travelling spell, so it needs to somehow express both a traveller and a destination. Magic is a bodily power, like mundane strength; it’s channeled through the bones and muscles, and most of all through the—_

_“It’s a blood sigil,” Gwen announces._

_Morgana and Merlin wheel about to stare at her in unison. She taps her finger on the page. “Two sigils to create two charms. One—I think—to keep on you. The other to put at your destination. And there’s—a bottle, or something, where the spell puts the blood. And it has to be blood, because—” Gwen shrugs, gesturing vaguely. “It’s magic. What else can it be?”_

_“And that’s the activation,” Merlin realizes, nearly falling in his haste to look at the book again. He runs his fingers down the rows of text, searching for some confirmation. “You break one of the vials, and the blood in both of them activates, pulling you from one place to the other.”_

_“So it’s an immediate activation, then.” Morgana’s face lights up. She slings her arms around Gwen and presses a loud, enthusiastic kiss to her lips. “What do you know, Merlin,” she adds, smirking. “I was right.”_

_Merlin rolls his eyes but cannot quite mask the excitement in his expression. He starts rifling through his runic compendium and sounding the spell out, taking margin notes in the spell codex with his small, neat hand. Morgana crowds next to Merlin, peering at the spell diagram. She turns back and blows another kiss in Gwen’s direction before she begins to pepper Merlin with questions about his pronunciation._

_The fading colors in the air strengthen again at the ringing sounds of magic, iridescent like the scales of a fish. A smile tugs at Gwen’s lips as she rises from the table. She needs to get Morgana’s hangings from the laundresses. She needs to eat. But first she needs to take up her usual spot in front of the main door, with her needle and thread, so she can distract whatever guard or page might come knocking on the door. Brigit does love fools and heroes the best—she loves them to an early grave. Gwen isn’t about to go trusting in the Goddess’ love to save them. Not when she has her own two eyes and ears._

_Faith can only go so far._

\-----

“We must increase the patrols in the border towns,” Uther announces.

Around him, the council is silent. Arthur is looking down at the table. He hasn’t spoken a word in the whole meeting. Gwen clutches a pitcher of water between her hands and prays to the gods that her heartbeat is not as loud as it sounds in her ears.

“The sorcerers are growing bolder in their treason, and I will not allow for it.” Uther’s voice reaches a dangerous quiet. “Lord Firmin, have you found the magician in your estate yet?”

Firmin is a slight man in middle age, so pale that the velvet splendor of the council robes overwhelms him. He had been among Uther’s earliest allies in his first war against magic, and he took his estate from the land at the bend of the river where the Druids once lived. Hundreds were buried in a single grave at the edge of his manor, without even the Goddess’ rites to send them to the blessed lands, and Uther granted him his lordship for it. On the darkest night of the year, not even the bravest of his knights dares to venture to the edge of the forest. The trees there are always rustling, and the air tastes of old copper in every season. 

“No, sire,” the lord now demurs, inclining his head. “But rest assured, we shall find the perpetrator soon, and give him to the crown for his due justice.”

Gwen wonders which poor servant he will bring to the citadel in chains. The river had flooded Firmin’s estate a fortnight past, and not even the lowliest stablehand had died. The perseverance of life—it was sorcery of the highest degree, the lord had cried.

“Thank you, my Lord Firmin.” Uther settles back in his chair. “The folk here are growing—restless. They need a reminder of the law.”

From her station, Gwen can see the prince’s shoulders stiffen. A reminder means a burning, or a drowning, or a beheading. Camelot knows to speak in only one tongue: the tongue of steel and flame. 

The king turns to his seneschal next, a lord by the name of Constans. “Have you been able to find any evidence of sedition among the servants?”

Constans’ face is serene as he ponders Uther’s question. Gwen has known the lord since she was a child, even before she was in the castle’s service. The adults of the castle towered over her back then, as mountains or trees, too great to waste time in understanding, but she still remembered the faces of two of them: Hilda, who would let her sneak pieces of sweetmeats as she hid from the pages in their games, and Constans, who told a guard to take a switch to her hand when he saw her taking food. The lord is Uther’s seneschal, the head of all the king's household affairs, and Gwen answers to him as head maid in the castle. Constans has never been fond of her, but he doesn’t hate her, either. Hate implies some degree of investment, and Constans merely views her as a curiosity, an aberration, a pigeon who learned human speech and fancies itself a lady. 

“No, my liege,” the man concludes after a long pause. “No evidence, not as such.”

Uther scowls. “How can there be no evidence, my Lord Constans? I see them huddled in the hallways, planning their canny little tricks.” His face darkens even more. “I will not be outsmarted in my own castle.”

Constans bows his head. “Of course, sire. I shall find the one spreading sedition forthwith.”

The whole council is made of Uther’s most loyal men; their place in Camelot is second only to the king, and their rank is nearly as unshakeable. Even these exalted lords now fall into an uneasy quiet, looking anywhere except the king’s seat. Gwen shifts uneasily where she stands, glancing up to the torches in their sconces. For the past half-year, Uther’s hate of magic has grown from candle-flame to a pyre, hot enough to burn him whole. He broke alliances with Annis’ and Rodor’s kingdoms because they offered asylum to magic users. Every sorcerer who’s caught has been burned without trial; the air in the square reeks of ash and hot blood, even when there is no fire smoking. When it rains, ashes mix with the water to make the puddles cloudy. 

Snow, the children in town have taken to calling it. Summer snow. 

There is only one of Uther’s lieutenants left. The king now turns to his son, sitting at his elbow. “What have you found in your patrols of the citadel, Arthur?”

Arthur’s inhalation rattles in his throat. “I have found—nothing, sire,” he confesses.

“Nothing?” Uther echoes.

“Aye. Nothing, sire.”

The prince’s words tremble under the weight of the king’s blank stare. Gwen wishes she could go to him here. “How is it possible,” Uther starts in a flint-sharp voice, “that in a citadel reeking of uncanny mischief, where half the peasants are on the verge of riot when someone looks in their direction—that there is no evidence of magic?”

“They are—” Arthur’s throat clicks as he swallows, but he persists, “—only unhappy, sire,”

“Unhappy?” Uther’s face contorts. “We don’t set the guards on them as they deserve. We haven’t closed the doors to them. What have they to be unhappy about?”

Raids. Execution. Fear. Gwen can barely breathe through the ash in the air on some days. It filters in through the open windows, into their open mouths. Judith’s mother and the other artisans haven't been receiving commissions from the townsfolk. Camelot’s withdrawal from trade with the eastern kingdoms shattered the merchantry. The future is closing in on them, and closing off. Who wants to commission a new cloak when they don’t know whether or not they’ll live to wear it in winter?

“They are defying me, Arthur,” Uther grates out. “And I will not have their defiance.”

Arthur bows so low that Gwen can only see the top of his head, his circlet the same brazen shade as his hair. “Aye, sire,” he whispers. His hands are clasped as though he is praying.

Uther isn’t even looking at him. “The evil of sorcery is afoot,” he declares, looking around his circle of close men. “In our own city, we have reports of treachery under our very eyes. In our lands, magic propels the floods and the storms and banditry. We must fight against this threat before we can turn to the threat to our borders.” His mouth twists. “Cornwall is rising.”

Cornwall—it is all the castle can talk about, from scullery maids to high lords. For two decades, Cornwall has counted for nothing, a parcel of land on the far western edge of Albion, populated by sheep herders and fishermen. They didn’t even have a king, much less an army rallied for conquest. But lately, word has come to Camelot of Cornwall gathering allies. The Druids there are reclaiming the land. The Mother’s worshippers have set up a temple in the citadel itself. There are rumors of power untold, and asylum to any who can reach it. For men like Uther, it is their worst fear. For many others, it is hope unspeakable. 

Arthur glances to Gwen. Gwen meets his eyes for a moment and then looks down. That is as much of a nod as she dares to give. 

“It is only hearsay, sire,” Lord Firmin murmurs. Arthur’s gaze snaps back to him. “The chatterings of eager common folk.”

“A month of report about the ascent of a new sorcerous assembly cannot be mere rumor, Firmin,” Uther snaps. “Tell your men, all of you. I want to know who leads Cornwall—who has the temerity to resurrect the rule we burned from Albion. I don’t care how far-reaching a rumor your information is, I want it. I have already defeated this plague once. I will burn it out of the land again if I must.” 

The assembly is ended soon thereafter. The lords file out, muttering amongst themselves about the blows to their profits, should war come to their estates. Uther leaves the chamber without ceremony, and his guards fall into step behind him. Soon, it is only Gwen and Arthur in the room, and the knight standing at the door.

“Gwen—” Arthur starts.

Gwen shoots a glance at the guard, and Arthur subsides uneasily. The columns and rafters arc above them, and even in the morning light filtering in through the high windows, they look like the rib-bones above a heart.

“We can hope,” is all she says aloud, a phrase that can mean anything. She starts tidying up the cups. “Brigit above, we can hope.”

\-----

_Arthur finds Gwen in Morgana’s rooms, sitting amidst the wreckage Uther’s knights made in their search of the chambers. She is crying. Or she’s trying to cry—her tears have run out by then, but her lungs don't care, and try as she might, she can't quell the sobs which wrack through her, belly to throat, like they’re slitting her open._

_The prince is the first to speak. “You knew,” he says._

_Gwen hiccups. There can only be one thing he means by that. “How—did you know?” she asks in response._

_“I’ve known Morgana since she was ten summers old, Gwen.” Arthur speaks slowly, parsing out every word with care. “I remember when she was a little girl and insisted on having you as her maid. I remember when she begged Father to throw you a feast for your name-day. I remember when she threw a tantrum for a solid sennight until he let her pick a gift from the royal treasury for you.” He laughs roughly. “With every glittering thing around her, out of all the treasures in the land, she chose my mother’s crown. Went straight to its box. She was thirteen years old, and she wanted to make you her queen.”_

_That makes Gwen’s throat tighten. Arthur looks down at her, his face shadowed. “If I’d had the wherewithal to think about it, I would’ve realized then and there. Morgana would cut off her own hand before she lifted it against you. Which means that you were distracting us, which means that you—knew about her magic.”_

_She doesn’t answer. He squares his jaw. "You've been lying to me. For all this time. You and Merlin both."_

_Gwen wants nothing more than to sink back into Morgana’s pillows, bury herself in the remnants of the bedding until the world forgets about her, but she doesn’t. She straightens her spine and meets Arthur’s eyes. There’s nothing left for her to say save for—_

_“What’re you going to do about it?”_

_Arthur makes an aborted step towards her, his expression contorting in sudden anger. She wonders how long he’s been holding that in. “You—you’re not even denying it,” he shouts. “You’ve been—you’ve been consorting with sorcerers—”_

_“What in the gods’ name is there left to deny?” Gwen yells back._

_He looks at her then with horror on his face, and she can nigh-on see it—the fundaments of his world crumbling away, ashes on the wind. He’s been raised by his father to scour sorcery from the land, and though Gwen doesn’t think he ever believed that magic is evil, he still believes in his father. “What’re you doing to do now, my lord?” she asks. “Drown me? Exile me?” She bares her teeth. “Burn me?”_

_Arthur stumbles back at what he sees on her face. He changes tack. “I—I just don’t understand,” he says weakly. “Why—why would you all—”_

_Gwen laughs. The sound is torn from her, utterly unhappy. “How many sorcerers have you seen burned, sire? How many have bled into the cobblestones beneath your window? There’s a grove in the forest where nothing grows, where they throw the bones of the dead without even a blessing over the ashes. You should know the king’s law by now, my lord. You’re his son.”_

_Her voice doesn’t sound like her own anymore—it is too low and too angry. Arthur is shaking his head, tears now sliding from his eyes. “No,” he says. “That is why they didn’t tell the king. I understand that. Gods. I hate it, but I understand. But why—why—”_

_His voice peters out. After a long quiet, he finally says, “Why didn’t they tell me?”_

_“I don’t know, sire,” Gwen rasps. “Who do you love more, them or your father?”_

\-----

“What do the councillors even do?” Judith asks suddenly.

Gwen’s brow furrows as she ponders the question. She is nonetheless careful to keep her eyes trained on the stack of cards in the middle of the table. They’re in a corner of the tavern, playing a private game between the two of them. Cards are a high lady’s game; the only reason Gwen has the deck is because it had been her father’s, given to him by his mother, who had bought them during her travels in the continent. The cards had been gilded once, and stored in a silk-lined box with brass clips, but all the gilding has since flaked off and Tom sold the box to a mummer’s troupe one particularly chilled winter to buy medicine. But the cards stayed with him, and he taught Gwen and Elyan how to play, and Gwen in turn had taught Morgana and Merlin and the others in her life. 

“I figured you’d know,” Judith adds. “Since you’re the only one of us who gets to go in that room.”

Heralds had gone around the lower town earlier that morning, announcing that every home and shop was to undergo inspection, by order of the king and council. Gwen sometimes wonders what magic even looks like to Uther and his men—an altar covered in chicken blood? a floor with arcane sigils burned into its boards? They seize on the smallest signs of the Goddess’ blessing to condemn souls to the pyre, that is true, but they still do not recognize how magic resides in the smallest of things—in bread being kept warm, in sweet candles never burning low, in the walls of houses learning the rhythms of their occupants, sighing alongside them in their sleep. 

“They’re advisors to His Majesty.” Gwen eyes her hand speculatively, exchanging a card for one from the deck. “Uther gave most of them their lordships after the first Purge, and they’ve been sitting on the council ever since. I don’t think they’re here to do much outside of leeching off our tribute to the crown.”

Judith tilts her head back and laughs. The sound melds into the clamor of the tavern. Behind them, a group of patrons shout in unison. Someone groans, and there is the sound of marks exchanging hands. The worst place to plot sedition is in an empty room; Gwen could be plotting Uther’s downfall this very moment, and no one would be any the wiser. Speaking of a downfall—

“Queen of bells and fool of bells pair, straight sweep,” Gwen announces, tossing her hand on the table. She flips the four reserved cards over and hisses in triumph as the rest of the sequence is revealed.

Judith slumps back in her chair, groaning. “How the hells did you figure out the line before me?” 

She throws down her hand, revealing the king of bells and a seven of bells. With her half-hearted glare, the glamours on the card dissolve, revealing the worn paper beneath. Three of hearts and seven of spades.

“Started with a shit hand, and it only got shittier,” Judith explains. “I was trying to figure out what my cards should be based on what you drew and put back. Now show them.”

Gwen grins a little as she pulls from under the table the three cards she had swiped from the deck while Judith wasn’t looking, to make sure the sequence fell as she wanted. Judith laughs as she pulls another out from her sleeve, which she had saved at the start of the game.

Gwen’s father never begrudged her and her brother a game of cards, no matter how busy the smithy got, and no matter how old they grew. Their little family became closely matched as the years progressed—Tom with his unerring instincts, Elyan with his quick strategies and quicker hands, and Gwen with her swift and calculating eye. After years and years of begging and pleading, Tom had taught them sleight of hand with the cards as well—how to distract and switch and reveal with a flick of the fingers—and when the games grew too easy for their liking, they threw all the rules to the wind and simply played for the outrageousness of their gambits. Gwen remembers laughing herself to tears after one game ended when there were no cards left to play, and her brother reached up his sleeves and pulled out five cards, and she did the same to reveal the winning sweep of four she had been saving, and their father winked at them and revealed no less than seven cards stowed away.

In the present, Judith is her favorite card partner by far. They both play ferociously and outlandishly, and while a stranger may think simple sleight of hand to be no match for real magic, the two of them end up splitting the games more often than not.

“When did you switch out the seven of bells with the king?” Judith asks. “I reckoned you’d switched the others, but I had no idea about the seven.”

“Right when you laughed,” Gwen says. She giggles at Judith’s offended gasp. “What? You were trying to distract me, I was trying to distract you. It’s all fair game.”

Judith harrumphs. “And here I thought you just hated the council.”

“Oh, that too,” Gwen reassures her. “That I most definitely do.”

They exchange a grin before Gwen gathers up the cards from around the table and shuffles them again, her hands moving with an ease born of long practice. She deals the cards and catches the faint telltale glimmer in Judith’s eyes when she picks her hand up. 

Fair enough. Gwen has two extra cards tucked in her palm from when she was dealing.

The soft firelight and chattering, happy clamor of the tavern makes the stillness outside all the more jarring when Gwen starts her return back to the castle. Judith had come to their card game jittery and withdrawn, panic writ clear on her features despite her best attempts to quell it. She was born with a golden gaze, as was her lover, and Imogen’s family had already lost one of their own to a witch burning. The guards’ inspections are ineffective the vast majority of the time, but when they are successful—

A full year ago, a man by the name of Ruadan had been the town apothecary. Gwen had stopped by his shop to pick up supplies for her maids, tonics and poultices that Gaius was either too busy or too canny to provide. He was nearly as good a potioneer as his wife and a kind enough man outside of that, who had knowingly never asked too many questions. His wife Leah and his daughter Sefa lived with him in the suite of rooms above his shop. They seemed happy enough—as happy as they could be, scraping out survival in a kingdom such as theirs.

Survival—it is a simple enough injunction. It is more than many in Camelot can hope for. Ruadan had been surviving well enough, until he made a man's broken leg heal faster than any bone should, and that man had talked a little too loudly about it in range of the castle. The castle walls have eyes and ears, and guards within then besides, and Uther’s knights had stormed the family’s rooms and found spellbooks there, and a Druid’s altar to the Goddess in her many forms.

Ruadan had taken all the blame when the day for his trial came. Confessed to enchanting his wife, befuddling his daughter, deceiving all his friends and lieges for decades. Gwen had sat by Leah as she wept and wept, knowing what her lover was doing so she and Sefa could live. 

The lower town is littered with stories like Leah’s: families shattered by the king's law, lovers and loved ones who had to disavow each other so that someone would survive the wreckage. Ruadan was one of the lucky ones, to have enough power to escape Camelot’s dungeons and vanish into the night. Most of these stories end with a pyre and Brigit's prayers chanted to an unheeding sky.

Camelot's land bleeds whenever a plow breaks the soil. It bleeds wherever the rivers rush and roar. The forests draw that blood from the soil, and the people build houses on top of the bones, shelter for their own bodies. That is what it means, to live in a city like this.

Judith knew Leah’s family well. Her mother’s spinning stall is next to the apothecary’s shop; she and Sefa had grown up together. Their fate weighs heavy on her, and it seems on the verge of repeating again, and Gwen isn’t a hero. She can neither slay monsters nor work miracles. All she can give is the work of her hands—hemming kirtles, serving wine, playing cards until the hour runs late and they can forget, if only for a candlemark or two, the drawn bows in the guards’ hands. 

The card hour was Gwen’s midday break. She spends her afternoon supervising the maids and scullery workers as they clean the great hall, in the throes of the ravages from yet another feast. Uther is courting allies to replace the ones he had lost to the call of Cornwall, and the hall must be made perfect anew for each set of haughty lords. It’s easy for the king to give such orders once a sennight—he isn’t the one sweeping up the dirty rushes, wiping down the floors and walls, and carting the grand tables and benches around the space to fit whatever number of visitors will next grace Camelot’s halls. Even the hangings have to be changed to flatter their incoming guests. Today, the wooded landscapes suiting Suffolk and Norfolk are traded for the war-stories hearkening to Anglia’s long lineages, and the old tapestries are packed with dried lavender and rosemary and set in crates, to be moved back into the treasury.

Gwen helps with the lifting and sweeping and scrubbing. She places the sweet lavender between all the folds of the tapestry, making sure that they lie smooth. She calls for maids to watch their feet as the tables are hoisted away. And she nods at the maids and sweepers whose eyes are wide and red-rimmed, who tremble in fear of Uther’s raids on his own people, steadying them with a hand on their shoulders and telling them what she had told Morgana time and time again—that it will be okay. That they will be okay.

The Goddess has proven her a liar many times over. She prays that there will be a day when she will no longer have to lie.

The dinner bell rings, and they disband. Gwen follows along to the kitchens, where the girls hurry to the common table, chattering among themselves. “My lady!” one of the maids—Bella, young enough to be fearless, who uses her magic on the sly to mend all the crockery she drops—calls, whirling to Gwen. “Are you joining us today?”

Gwen tilts her head, considering. She is only here for Arthur’s dinner, but he is at a meeting with his father, and their meetings have had a tendency to drag well past their intended ending time. She has time.

“Just for a bit,” Gwen says, and Bella whoops in victory. 

She ends up on a bench sandwiched between Vera and Bella, a bowl of soup and a slice of bread in front of her. Gwen dunks her bread into her soup and starts spooning the broth into her mouth. It’s not as salted or spiced as the food for the high table, but it’s hot, and she’s hungry enough not to care about scalding her tongue. The companionable chaos of her maids breaks over her as a wave; some of her staff are wary around her, but the small tables and sweet wine make it easier for them to forget her rank and her actions. Gwen props her elbows on the table and rests her chin in her hands, grinning softly as she catches snatches of chatter—about Alis’ letter from her son, about Vera’s latest dalliances, about Bella’s new hound, about the new shipments of wheat and wool being dragged through the lands into Camelot’s treasury. 

“You should come by more often,” Vera tells her in a low voice.

Gwen colors faintly. “I—still see you all,” she says.

Bella saves her from having to elaborate on her response. “But you miss all the good gossip!” the girl chimes in, stealing a piece of cheese from Annie’s plate. “No one says anything up in the castle proper.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you, to think that our Lady Gwen doesn’t already know,” Vera teases, nudging her shoulder against Gwen’s, and Gwen colors even more. 

“The best eyes and ears in the castle, our Lady Gwen,” Hilda chimes in. She sets her knife aside and bustles over, sitting down next to Vera. “Always has been, ever since she was so short she couldn’t even reach over my table.”

“Hilda!” Gwen protests.

“What?” Hilda pops a bite of dried pear into her mouth. “It’s true. You were ten years old and you wouldn’t let me rest until I let you carry the wine into the council chamber, because you wanted to listen in and know everything there was to know.”

Gwen covers her face with her hands. She remembers the first time she went into the council chamber, her fear that she would be whipped for dropping a cup warring with her excitement at stepping foot in a room that she never once dreamed would open to her. The lords had been talking tariffs that day, for timber or wool or apples or some other import from some far distant land, and her heart beat so loud in her ears that she couldn’t understand what she had begged to hear.

“I’m quite glad you still sit with us, my lady,” Hilda says. The hearth-flames dance on her face. “It'd be damn shame, to see your eyes and ears going to the aid of our lords and ladies.”

Gwen shakes her head. "Our lords and ladies already have enough eyes and ears," she says with a twist of her lips. "I shan't be adding to them."

Hilda laughs. "There's our girl."

The maids wave at Gwen when she rises from her seat, with Bella calling for her to come back the next day, when there'll be fresh cured venison cut straight from the shank. She gathers the prince’s food from the hearths. His bread is made with fine flour, and the pot of soup set aside for the lords is speckled with cinnamon and pepper.

Her steps are heavy as she heads back to Arthur’s chambers. All her maids were there—Alis, Janet, Bella, Vera, Annie, more sitting along the second bench, with their aprons creased from their day of work. There was also, despite them all being packed along the tables so tightly that they jostled each other with their elbows every time they moved, still the barest sliver of bare space between Janet and Annie which they stubbornly maintained, as if Sefa would step in at any moment, plop down between them, and demand to know what she had missed.

It had never been allowed for them to grieve for her pain; grieving the actions of a king is too akin to questioning them. It had never been allowed for them to miss her after she vanished, either. But they keep her with them, in small and defiant ways. She won't be forgotten.

Arthur is at his desk. He doesn’t look up when she sets the tray at his elbow. 

“How was your meeting with his majesty, sire?” Gwen asks.

The prince shrugs. The dagger in his hands is bright, polished to a mirror shine, but he keeps dragging the cloth over it, keeping his hands busy as he thinks. He thinks with his blades. There is a knife on his desk and another on his side table, and there might be another sword on his window seat, hidden under a woven throw. He leaves weapons littered around his chamber like a child with his toys—they were his toys, when he was a child, raised in the wreckage of his father’s rage. His hands do not know any other tools.

“He’s worried about Cornwall,” is all Arthur says.

“He’s been worried about Cornwall for the last fortnight.”

“Even more worried. There are rumors of an army.”

The council has been planning for an armed march on Camelot for the last sennight at least. Gwen starts tidying up the prince’s desk. A silence settles between them, taut enough to cut with a knife. 

“I am to lead the raids,” Arthur says at last.

Gwen stills. She had her suspicions, but it still shocks through her to hear the words out loud. “In the lower town?” she asks thinly.

He bows his head and says nothing more.

Arthur’s first raid was when he was a child still, fourteen or fifteen, riding a pony. Gwen remembers standing next to Morgana and watching as the party galloped out, the prince dwarfed by the scarlet-draped knights around him. They were to target one of the final Druid camps in Camelot’s bounds. It was an easy, safe mission for a prince; the Druids were known pacifists, and the people staying in encampment were the vulnerable among them: the men and women who couldn’t move with the seasons, the healers, the children. Only some of them had the Mother’s blessing, but they all made the mistake of revering it. Arthur—had so wanted to make his father proud.

His shoulders are shaking now. He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, his breath hitching in the back of his throat. It would be cruel to ask something of him now, when he is already so distraught—

“Arthur.” Gwen’s voice breaks out of her nonetheless. “You can’t.”

The dagger clatters on the desk as he throws it aside. He whips about to face her, his eyes too-bright. “I know,” he shouts. “You don’t have to tell me, Gwen, I know I can’t, I can’t lead my people to the pyre, I swore to protect them and uphold them and now I’m as good as bringing the blade down on their necks—” his face cumples, “—but—”

But Uther. Uther, who sees the unrest in his people and blames everyone except himself, who will never be happy unless he has someone to hang, who had likely demanded a corpse from his son by noontide tomorrow. Arthur loves his father the way wood loves the flame that blackens it—with abandon, without hope. To the prince, the king might as well be a god, or a gilt icon, so far distant that the closest he can get to love is devotion. In the months since Morgana and Merlin left him behind, he’s realized the shadow Uther casts over their kingdom, but he still wants to believe.

They each have their gods. Losing faith is an awful thing. 

“I still hear them screaming,” Arthur whispers. “The Druids—I close my eyes and I hear them, and it’s been years and years. I can’t do that again, Gwen. I won’t.”

Gwen steadies him with a hand on his shoulder. “Then don’t,” she says.

He makes a sound between a laugh and a sob. “You say that so easily.”

A laugh bubbles its way up her throat in turn as she thinks of the sleepless nights she spent after the trials, the months she spent drowning in fury at herself, looking up at the groaning stones and praying for them to finally swallow her whole. She no longer has the luxury of saying anything easily.

“He wants to think that you’ve bewitched me,” Arthur confesses. He lifts his head and meets her eyes. “If I keep disobeying him, and don’t find him someone else to blame, he—he told me—”

Gwen’s stomach sinks. It’s what she told him after they left, but he wouldn’t listen. She already had the mark of the traitor on her back, clear as if she were holding a heavenly brand; it would only be a matter of time before the king came for her. Arthur paid no heed and made her his maid in chief—from the friendship he felt towards her, from the guilt he felt at not having helped Merlin and his sister, or from his own righteousness, she did not know, but he did it regardless, and now the king is waiting for the right day to come to punish them both.

“You let him take me.” Gwen shakes the prince’s shoulders gently. “Listen to me, Arthur. You have to protect your people; your first duty is to them. I’m guilty of more than most in town, and if it is because of me that others are dragged in front of the square—” she trails off, bile rising in her throat. “I shan’t forgive myself.”

Arthur wrenches himself away from her hands. “How do you expect me to forgive myself if something happens to you?” he bites out.

Gwen nearly laughs herself. She’d give both her hands to have an answer to that question.

“Tell me the route,” she says instead. “And when you’ll start, and where.”

“North town, by the well,” Arthur answers immediately. He seems glad to have something concrete to cling to. “At the stroke of the seventh bell. We’ll work our way around eastwards. The knights still have actual patrols to do, so Uther wants them to finish by the eighth.”

Seventh to eighth bell, from the north end of the town. Gwen nods her thanks. The prince turns to his food, and Gwen picks up a laundry basket and hastens back down the stairs and through the courtyards, out to the lower town proper. It’s late for laundry, but none of the knights on watch would know that. She tells the tanner, and the baker, and the cobbler. The cobbler’s face goes tight and somber, and he hurries down the street and ducks into the tavern, where half the town is still huddled over their dice tables. She sees two of her maids by the well, and she tells them as well—rumor, she says carefully. It’s only rumor.

When she comes back to Arthur’s rooms, she starts tidying again, picking up the blades scattered around his chamber and setting them in the corner where he kept his scabbard and tack. There’s his hunting knife, and his eating knife, and the dagger he usually kept down his boot. Another dagger—the one he had been polishing—which Morgana gave him for his last name-day, embellished with rearing bears on the handle. Gwen had helped her pick that dagger. Her fingers still when they grasp the hilt of his main sword, a sturdy hand-and-a-half blade. It was one of the last swords her father struck. The leather of the grip is smooth and worn under her palm, familiar. She had been the one to finish that hilt. This blade knows her.

When she goes into her room that night, her head is wooly and her shoulders aching enough that she debates falling asleep in her day clothes, kirtle and all, but she’s done that enough to know she’ll pay in the morning with wrinkled skirts and a creased undershift. She fumbles her kirtle and chemise off. Her fingers linger on the scar on her stomach, a line of raised skin the length of an apple core.

It healed clean. That’s enough for her. 

\-----

_A scream shatters through the night, and Gwen swings on her heel, running back into Morgana’s bedchamber from the main room, where she had been pacing. There is no fire. That’s a blessing. Morgana is sitting upright in bed and sobbing. Her hands are knotted in her hair, pulling out sections of the plaits, and Gwen settles on the bed next to her, gently untangling her fingers from her braids before she can tangle them beyond repair._

_“It’s alright,” Gwen soothes her, gripping her wrists tightly. “It’s alright, Morgana. I’m here. You’re alright.”_

_Morgana wordlessly pulls Gwen to her, and Gwen goes gladly, laying her head on Morgana’s shoulder and inhaling the sweet smell of her. Little by little, Morgana’s breathing slows. Gwen plays with Morgana’s fingers where their hands lie entwined on the coverlet, marvelling idly at the strong flex of the bone and tendon beneath her lady’s uncallused palms. Nights like this had once been common, but it has been a while since a night terror struck her lady so sharply. Not since she was trying to hide herself._

_“What did you see?” Gwen asks._

_She brings Morgana’s hand up to her face, kissing her knuckles as she waits for an answer. It takes a life of luxury, to keep her hands so unmarked—but the smoothness of Morgana’s skin is also a lie, concealing the fire rooted deep in her bones, the gold coursing through her fanning veins._

_“Me.” Morgana’s voice is rough, more felt than heard. “My eyes like flame.” She pauses, and Gwen lifts her head to look at her. There is lamplight tangled in her pupils, and in the wet of the whites around them._

_“It was just a dream,” Gwen tells her. "You needn't worry."_

_“No. It was the future. And I was killing you.” Morgana surges up. Something in her has snapped, given way to panic. “Me—my eyes like flame, as you forced a sword into your belly on my command—”_

_Her voice breaks then, and she sinks into herself, hiding her face in her clasped hands. Gwen wraps her arms around Morgana and holds her as tightly as she can. “That won’t ever happen,” Gwen declares. “So you have nothing to fear.”_

_Morgana shakes her head wordlessly, catching small, frantic sounds in the back of her throat. Gwen guides her head up from her shoulder so their eyes can meet again._

_She asks simply, "Would you ever want to do it?"_

_Morgana recoils. "What?" There is horror in her voice. "I would never. Never in my life. You know that, I will never try to harm you, I swear on the Mother and the Mother's earth—"_

_Her lady has always made promises like they are easy, like they are nothing, except Gwen knows her well enough to understand that she tries her damnedest to keep every single one of them. It is the mark of a child who has never borne the weight of refusal. It is the mark of a high lady at whose command the world has always bent._

_That sliver of her soul has been battered and worn by the night terrors and the burnings and the drownings, folded so small that it can be lodged in the space beneath her ribs, but it is still there. After the strange days when Morgause, the knight with the black seal, swept through the castle, Morgana sometimes stood at her windows and looked down with something like calculation at the people walking in the square below. She still talks to Morgause through her silver mirror sometimes, and wears the knight’s bracelet on her left arm. Gwen wonders what Morgause is promising her lady—what kingdoms, what thrones. What people saved, by her right and by her hand._

_And Gwen cannot even begrudge her that, because Morgana’s heart is as wide as the world that she thinks she commands, and she has never met a soul she did not want to save. If the world were kind, it would never make her learn what it is like to break a promise._

_"That is all that matters to me." Gwen smooths stray strands of Morgana's hair from her face._

_"But what if—" Morgana's breath hitches. The panic in her face grows. "What if I do hurt you, Gwen? What if—what if I—"_

_Gwen sets her finger on Morgana's lips, and Morgana subsides. The wetness in her eyes wells and spills, catching light, and Gwen brushes the tears away, her chest tightening. She kisses Morgana's cheek, tasting the salt caught between her thumb and Morgana’s skin._

_"Damn fate, Morgana," she says, soft and adamant. "Your actions are your own. Trust in that."_

_"I—can't." Morgana's voice is feather-thin. The future is a ghost in Morgana’s head—prophecy renders the still-living dead, and that is how she looks at Gwen now, like she is already bleeding by Morgana’s own hand. "I can't trust myself, Gwen. I can't. Not after what I’ve seen."_

_"Then I shall trust you enough for the both of us."_

_Gwen kisses her on the forehead and holds her tight again. Morgana presses herself even closer to Gwen, clinging like a vine. She hasn't stopped trembling. "And you should have a little faith in me," Gwen says into the crook of Morgana's neck. She adds in a light tone, "I am very trustworthy."_

_Morgana laughs shakily. "You are," she says. In spite of her laughter, her voice is earnest enough to make Gwen's chest ache. "And I do. Utterly."_

_Gwen doesn't know what she has done to garner such unwavering fidelity. There is only so much she can do—untangle herself from her lady, take up a splint from the case by the hearth, bring light to the room. It is a boon of living in a castle, that there is always a torch burning nearby. The knight standing guard outside is familiar enough with Morgana's nightmares that his only reaction is a sleepy nod in Gwen's direction as she goes out into the hall for a light._

_She is sure to lock Morgana's door behind her when she gets back inside. Warm light floods the bedchamber when she lights the candles there, falling golden on Morgana's drawn face. One of her hands is still in her lap, but the other is curled around her ear—like she's trying to hide from sounds only she can hear, or on the verge of clawing them out._

_"Do you want to look at the cards?" Gwen asks, once the final candle is lit._

_Morgana jolts a little at her voice, and then her face goes sheepish, and guilty. "I can't, Gwen, it must be well into the canny hours, and I've already disturbed your sleep enough—"_

_Sefa’s trial is tomorrow. Gwen couldn’t have slept if Brigit herself gave the command. "You aren't disturbing anything that wasn't already disturbed."_

_Even if that was a lie, she still would've said it to see the relieved smile on Morgana's face. She tosses the used splint into the hearth and goes to the little chest on Morgana's desk, where the household seal is kept along with the sealing wax. Gwen's deck of cards is kept there too, since it no longer has its old box. She takes out the cards and shuffles them before sitting back down on the bed._

_It had been Gwen’s idea to help Morgana focus her Sight with the cards. Morgana—she had been petrified in those early days, so sure that all her magic brought was death and doom that she refused to use the Sight at all, even when it began to eat away at her sleeping hours. One night, when they were both awake, Gwen had drawn out her cards, and carefully spread them out, and told Morgana to pick one._

_Tom had taught her the trick when she was bedridden one winter, too feverish even to sew. It’s the sort of thing people do at parties, or at mummers’ shows—utterly common, and trite beyond that. But Morgana had looked nothing short of astounded when Gwen reshuffled the cards and, after her practiced questions, told her that her card was the queen of bells._

Gwen _, she said thinly._ Are you—

No, my lady, _Gwen replied._ I’m as ordinary as they come. But if someone as ordinary as I can divine such knowledge—she reached out and gasped Morgana’s hands between hers—then the practice cannot be so evil, can it?

_Morgana now asks Gwen from time to time with a grin in her voice to teach her the trick she had first used. Gwen always laughs and refuses. After all, she still needs some magic that is all her own—and Morgana's Sight can tell her the order of a full shuffled deck._

_Gwen sets the deck face side down on the sheets between them. "First card?" she prompts._

_Morgana's eyes flutter shut. She takes a deep breath through her parted lips, and then another, before she says, her voice steadier than it has been all night, "Six of hearts."_

_Gwen flips the first card over. It's the six of hearts. "Next card?"_

_"Seven of bells."_

_Gwen flips. Seven of bells. "And the next?"_

_"King of goblets."_

_Gwen nods as the correct card is revealed. "What's the—fifth card in?" she asks, folding the cards already revealed back in and reshuffling the whole deck._

_Morgana's eyes snap open to glare at Gwen in indignation, and Gwen laughs so loudly that it echoes—because if her lady has it in her to pout her affront at having to start over, she’s pushed the more distant future and all the grief it will bring to the side. Morgana’s Sight has not yet erred, so Gwen has little doubt that there will come a day, when she will meet Morgana’s eyes and bring a blade to herself. That is the future. If they lived as though it had already come to pass, they would waste away their present._

_They are not yet ghosts. They can take time for lightness._

_“Queen of hearts,” Morgana blurts out, triumphant. Her face is scrunched in concentration, and Gwen’s heart hurts where it beats between her lungs, unwieldy and too full._

_She flips over the cards. The fifth is the queen of hearts._


	2. Gold Between His Fingers

“I’m going to start thinking that this is what they pay you for.”

Gwen rips her eyes from the castle and turns around to the sight of Judith, who is clutching a cup of spiced cider in each of her hands. She thrusts one towards Gwen. “It doesn’t move, my lady. It’s just a hunk of stone. Though what do I know—maybe if you stare at it enough, it’ll start staring back.”

Gwen rolls her eyes but still waves the cider away, demurring, “I already drank with the others, you should have it—”

“Hush, you.” Judith presses the cup into Gwen’s hands. “I know you can drink the first press of the season with all the mace and clove you can dream of; you don’t have to remind me, my lady. But you tipped me thrice what you should've when you came to the shop, so do me the courtesy of letting me get you a half cup of cider. One day, I'll even manage to get you into my home for a meal and repay all those platters you've paid for at the tavern.”

The air is cold, nipping at Gwen’s fingers and ear, and the wooden cup is warm, the golden drink inside still steaming. “Alright,” Gwen assents. She glances over at Judith. “Shouldn’t you be dancing for the harvest?”

“Imogen spends harvest day with her family,” Judith explains. “The fall’s never good for her. It’s when her sister—left.”

Gwen stills. “Oh,” she manages.

Behind them, couples are proceeding hand-in-hand between the bonfires which are lit to start the autumn festival each year. The younger children of the town flit among them, laughing as they duck underneath lovers’ joined hands. The fires are smaller this year, and the dancers fewer, with some of the townsfolk standing distant entirely, giving the flames a wide berth. A wet log pops loudly, and someone screams. The sound ricochets off of the castle walls, overlapping with the sheepish laughs and apologies, turning it all into jarring, muddled noise. Gwen searches the figures for a familiar face and finally waves at Vera, who is arm-in-arm with her stablehand. Vera waves back with a fleeting smile. 

There is an empty space behind her, where Bella should have been. Bella is gone, her ashes scattered. A sorcerer had tried to run when Uther's knights caught him in the square. The royal guards let fly a volley of arrows to pursue him, unheeding of the townspeople all around. Their arrows took the man down, and took Bella down besides where she was standing at the well, drawing water for the men to drink after their raids. Gwen was the one to write to Bella's mother, telling her that her daughter was gone. Nothing Gwen does is enough—no matter how closely she tells the town the castle’s plans, no matter how carefully she guards over her maids and leads the knights away from what they should not see, the law still falls with impunity. It never becomes any easier, watching as someone is forced to meet the pyre, or the executioner’s axe, or the arrows of a callous fate.

It’s for the better, that it hurts every time. Bearing witness to cruelty should never be easy. If it were, they would then be spectators, tyrants, joining the ranks of the man who gave the order. Because that is all Uther is—a man, a creature with a heart and lungs like her, no more mighty, no more just. The line between justice and cruelty is drawn with gold: coins, sceptres, crowns. All it takes is gold between his fingers, to turn a man from cruel to just.

Bright laughter rings out behind them, children shrieking as they jump over the embers from a fire that has burned low. Gwen briefly closes her eyes at the sound. No one deserves to grow under the groaning weight of these walls. 

At her side, Judith sips at her cup, her face shadowed and angry. She has been like this since Gwen has known her, quiet and solemn, easily wary and even slower to forgive. She might have been less solemn, had she been born without gold in her eyes, but such fancies are less than useless now. When she speaks, her voice is nearly lost to the shouting and the wind. “You’re stuck with me for today.”

Gwen turns, her eyes stinging at the corners. “Not stuck,” she murmurs in a thick voice. “No.”

She hugs the other woman then, and Judith grumbles something about sentimentality and spilt cider, but she hugs Gwen back nonetheless.

Gwen buys them both another round of cider from the stall on the green, and then another, until the warmth from the drink has settled in her throat and belly. They take their cups to an empty patch of ground next to the courtyard wall and sit down, leaning against the stone. The sky is cloudless, but the sun is low, the weak light raking along the streets and throwing more shadow than illumination. 

“Is it true?” Judith finally asks. She meets Gwen’s gaze, eyes bright from fear in her spirit-flushed cheeks. “Are we really going to war?”

Gwen drains her cup, barely noticing the grainy dregs at the bottom. “Camelot’s been at war since before we were born,” she says. “The only difference is, this one’s from the outside.”

One by one, the lovers stop their dancing around the bonfire and stand at the edges of the light instead, speaking lowly among themselves. It is only the children left revelling now, running between the fires free from care. They are too young to understand the stillness that has stolen over the festival, tender as a bruise and eerie. Gwen served wine in council for four of the last five days and listened as bedraggled heralds came from all corners of Albion and gave their reports to the king. Anglia has joined forces with Cornwall, and Ascetir besides. The castle by the sea which had before been home to no king is now home to two, though they do not call themselves kings: a Druid who walked from the realm of prophecy, and a High Priestess who came from the mists. They have weapons on their side, power unfathomable to mortal minds—wolves endowed with human speech, dragons the size of mountains, a grail which makes men live forever.

It’s all horseshit, of course. Idle and fearful yarns spun by those who want to curry the king’s favor by telling him what he wants to hear. But rumors like that do not arise in unison without a kernel of truth, and Gwen does not have to be a lord with a council seat to piece together what is happening. Magic is rising. Magic brings war to Camelot.

“We can’t survive this,” Judith whispers. She slumps against Gwen. “A new war would break us. Between the pyres and—and the patrols, and with winter coming up—”

There is a cycle to life in the lower town, and it is at its harshest in the winter. Gwen remembers what she was most grateful for when she first entered the castle's service: a warm, dry bed; tonics for her throat, lit hearths. For many, these things are luxuries.

“I can’t even care that it would set us free,” Judith says, her voice muffled against Gwen’s shoulder. “A war would be the end of us. I can’t watch this anymore. I can’t. Gods, Gwen—” she breaks off suddenly and laughs, the sound torn out of her like a blade from a body. “Why do we swear by them if they aren’t even watching?”

Gwen mulls over the question. She was taught the Mother’s prayer on her father’s knee, which she still recites whenever she pours her first draught of wine. Goddess, who bears many names, who taught them the arts of kind healing and sharp mourning, drink with them and bring them aid. For they walk on the world she created and bade them till, and they are small against the scope of her glory. Goddess, come to them, so they might no longer be alone. Be their shield against their smallness.

“I think we swear—” Gwen says slowly, “—because we hope they are.”

“If they really are, then why haven’t they come down yet?” Judith waves at the bonfires, and the pale, wan fades caught in their light. “Why haven’t they—”

She trails off, leaving Gwen wondering what she had been about to say. It makes no real difference, because there is only one answer Gwen can give, to any of her questions. “Contrary bastards, the lot of them.”

Judith giggles and then falls quiet again. They watch the fires for a while more.

“Do you believe in them?” Judith asks abruptly.

“Who, the gods?” Gwen tilts her head back against the rough stone wall, feeling it grate against her hair. “I think so.” She pauses. “Do you?”

Judith shrugs. “My mother has a lot of them. My father has one. None of them are the same as yours.” She throws her cup to the side. “None of them have helped me yet. And I pray, Lady Gwen. It’s the only thing my mother ever taught me from her parents’ tongue.” Her smile is crooked and rueful. “I pray every day.”

Judith’s mother had been born to ambassadors from the splendor of the Tang court, sent to the kingdoms of Brittany. She became a lady-in-waiting of House du Bois when she came of age, and when the Lady Ygraine left for Camelot, Judith’s mother came with her, along with ten bolts of the silk her parents had first brought to the western continent.

 _They sometimes look at me when they come into the shop,_ Judith had told Gwen once, when they were hunched over the kitchen benches last winter, picking at the hard rinds of their mutton pies. _Like I’m something strange._ Her mouth twisted. _But the lords in the castle, they wear silk kirtles sewn with silk thread, and spice their meat with pepper and clove. Why am I still strange to them, when they eat so freely?_

Why are they still strange, when all they brought has already been consumed? The wealth of the world lies in Camelot’s treasuries. Silk bedecks the shoulders of the women and men in court, and drapes over the walls in the high council chamber. The men of the council sit in chairs inlaid with ivory and bronze which tell the stories of their conquests.

These things are silent: silk, thread, ivory. People with voices, people with names—they are not. They still have lungs. 

Gwen lived all her life in Camelot. Near twenty years she has spent in the castle’s service, and still she feels the heaviness of others’ gazes on her when she enters a room—not enough to question her, but enough to mark the fact of her difference. Enough for her to feel as though it were a questioning. 

But what gives them the right to question her? She is of Camelot. As much as the Pendragon line, as much as any lady or lord who might lay claim to the land, she has the right to call the kingdom hers, and herself theirs. Her lineage is as rich as any king’s. The mother of her mother’s mother, she was from Askum, far across the sea—the daughter of a sculptor and a sculptor herself, who worked marvels in ivory and wood. She went to Alexandria for a commission with five others from her guild, and lived there afterwards among those wide and gleaming streets. Gwen only knows this because her mother's mother was scholar—a codex-binder when she had to be, to pay for her fare on ships—sailing between Alexandria and the cities of the paltry land others called the continent to work in their libraries, and she wrote in her own journals about the people she met, and the citadels she saw, and the history in her own veins. For ten years she journeyed through Córdoba and León on her search for knowledge, and there came a day when she crossed the white-foam waters to Albion, an isle so small it did not even merit a place on half the maps in the wider world. 

Albion was a strange, cold, fog-laden place, but she made a home there nonetheless, and a family. Her daughter shared her eye for graceful lines and her clever hand, but instead of a codex-binder, Amina apprenticed under a smith, and when she became a journeywoman she went ever further inland, along the winding high ways, until she came to Camelot, and there made her home in turn. 

Her father's mother came from Córdoba as well. A captain of trade, who made a small fortune from the paths she drew across the ocean—or, if not a fortune, then enough to make a living. She settled on the shores of Albion when the sea ceased to call so restlessly, and she had many lovers, one of whom bore a son with her, and her son became a journeyman smith and travelled away from the crashing waves, on the same winding high ways which Amina trod.

These stories were all written down—by her mother’s mother, in a script Gwen had never learned to read, and by her mother, by a hand Gwen will never be able to know. Amina had died when Gwen was still too young to know her. Tom was the one to tell Gwen her mother's stories, and Gwen used to pore over her journals voraciously, searching for Amina within their pages. Now even those are gone. Uther’s guards had searched their house after her father was killed, and they confiscated the old books and journals, hissing at the things they found inside. Sorcery, they cried, peering at the words they did not know. It must be sorcery.

Gwen is of Camelot. She loves this land and this people. But when Judith says, her voice distant and nearly wistful—

“I pray for them to burn this city to the ground.”

—Gwen cannot find anything wrong in her words.

\-----

_“She wants to see you,” Leah says._

_The apothecary turns away, walking back through the lower town at a brisk pace. After a moment’s pause, Gwen jogs to catch up to her, shoving the bouquets of dried lavender she had just bought for her room into the front pockets of her apron. "Leah," she says, matching her pace with the other woman's, "I'm so, so—"_

_"Save it, my lady," Leah snaps. They come to her shopfront, and she unlocks the door jerkily, slamming it shut behind them. "She's upstairs. She asked for you." Gwen opens her mouth, but Leah cuts across her words. "By Brigit, Ancasta, and all the deathless gods, if you try to apologize to me again, I will cast you out of this house with a binding so strong you won't be able to speak my name again."_

_Her eyes flash, affirming her oath. "You're sorry," she spits. "I'm sorry. But that does nothing for her. So stop saying it."_

_Gwen can only bow her head, acquiescing. Leah works her jaw for long moments, her gaze hard and bright, before she goes behind her counter and starts to work, mixing a poultice with tallow and rosewater with steady, practiced motions. The stairs to the level of the house are to the left of the area where Leah works, and Gwen takes them slowly, one by one into the gloom._

_The stairs lead up into one bright room, lit with a diffuse warm light emanating from everywhere and nowhere that nearly traces along Gwen's skin. The air smells of the same herbs filling the downstairs room, bright and green despite the lateness of the season, and the floorboards are warmed through against the winter chill. This is a home with magic woven through its walls. It breathes as Gwen breathes, thrumming with a heartbeat._

_In the pallet in the corner, small and pale, with the blankets pulled up to her chin, is Sefa. She is half-upright, propped up by what must be every pillow in the house. Her hands are bandaged in clean linen, from wrist to fingertips, and her cheeks are swollen._

_"It's from the numbing cream," she explains when Gwen enters. "For my teeth."_

_Her voice is muddled from the swelling, and from three teeth pulled and left to bleed. Gwen remembers them lying pink and red on the council floor and wonders, suddenly, who had to pick the teeth up, and she feels sick to her stomach all over again._

_"I'm not sick," Sefa announces, with the assertive conviction unique to her age. "I can move. But my mother doesn't want me faffing about like a headless chicken until I've rested for a couple days."_

_Something tells Gwen that those are Leah's words. As she makes her way to Sefa's beside, her throat is too dry to muster anything beyond a whisper. "I'm glad to hear that."_

_"Mother wouldn't let me see you, but I needed to say it." Sefa maneuvers herself a little higher on her mound of pillows and pronounces, "Thank you. For saving her.”_

_There is nothing left for her to do. Gwen starts laughing helplessly, falling to her knees at Sefa's side. “If you are thanking me for that, then I do not think I should be thanked at all.” She grips the girl’s hand tightly. “I—should have saved you.” Her voice splinters, as glass on gravel, despite her best efforts to keep it level. “By Brigit, Sefa, I should have found a way to save you.”_

_“Lady Gwen.” Sefa tugs on her sleeve, and Gwen looks up. “You know I don't blame you, right?"_

_It’s a long while before Gwen can answer. "Maybe you should."_

_"There wasn’t anything you could do. Even I know that,” Sefa adds earnestly. The girl's expression clouds. "My mother doesn't, though. She's real angry. I can't remember the last time she was this mad. She says you should've found a way."_

_"She's right. I should have." Gwen shakes her head. "There is always a way,” she says, almost to herself._

_It is what she tells Morgana, and Merlin—and even Arthur, whenever those three face the trials of some grand and glorious quest. There is always a way for the world to be kinder. There is always a way to make it hurt less. With the Questing Beast. With Valiant. With Ealdor. They made their happy endings then. But maybe that is only because those four are Goddess-blessed, and their stories cannot but end in glory. Merlin’s friend Will didn’t get a happy ending. Neither did Freya, the girl who had wanted nothing more than to live. The only thing they got were graves, because their lives have a different logic._

_“Besides,” Sefa says. She smiles, further stretching her swollen cheeks. “Mother says she’ll have my teeth back in the week. No one’ll ever think to check.” Her smile quickly falls as she glances down at her hands. “People’ll see these though, so I won’t have nails for a month. And I can’t go back to the castle yet, because scabbing splits. Can’t bleed all over the good plates, you know?”_

_“Don’t worry about it,” Gwen says at once. Scabbing splits, and lye burns. This she can do. “I’ll send you your marks each week, as though you were working, and you can come back to the castle when your hands have healed.”_

_“My lady—”_

_“Let me do this.” Gwen'll dock the marks from her own pay if she has to. “For you and your mother.”_

_The girl opens her mouth to protest, and Gwen preempts her. "Please, Sefa."_

_Sefa sighs and then finally nods. “Thank you, Lady Gwen.”_

_Her eyes fall to her hands, and when she speaks again, it is with the gravity of a confession. “I told my mother we could count on you. When I was little, really little, I thought you had to have magic." Her voice is small as a sparrow’s wings, and suddenly sad. "Because you always made everything okay.”_

_Gwen can’t bear it any more. She jolts to her feet, dusting off her skirts to give her hands something to do. When she dares to look back, Sefa is still gazing down at her hands like they are not hers, like she cannot bear to know them, and something grows in Gwen’s lungs until her ribs feel like they might break from the strain. She grasps in her mind for something, anything she can do to allay the sadness in Sefa's voice, and remembers with a start the flowers she has tucked in the front of her apron._

_“Well, maybe I do have a little magic,” Gwen says, after a moment of rustling skirts. She turns back towards Sefa with a shaky smile and holds out her empty hands. “Watch this.”_

_Sefa stares at her, mouth half-open in puzzlement. “I—what for?” she says slowly._

_Gwen crouches down again, so their eyes can meet. “Magic,” she says. Her father taught her that the most important part of a sleight of hand act is the distraction. “Because I don’t remember you having a flower in your hair,” Gwen reaches behind Sefa’s ear, “when I came in.”_

_She settles back on her heels and holds up a sprig of lavender in her hand, only slightly bent from being crushed against her wrist._

_Sefa considers it for a beat. Her nose crinkles. “You just hid that up your sleeve, Lady Gwen.”_

_“I did,” Gwen says shamelessly._

_Sefa blinks at her once, twice, and then tilts her head back and laughs from her belly, full and happy. Gwen starts giggling too, the sound spilling like a dam has burst in her chest after a flooding rain as she tucks the lavender behind Sefa’s ear. The girl reaches up and touches the little blooms with her bandaged fingertips. Her hand trembles only slightly._

_Distraction indeed. A little of the tightness seeps from Sefa's shoulders as she rolls her eyes, and Gwen feels herself start breathing again._

\-----

Gwen pours another finger’s breadth of wine into Lord Firmin’s cup. Across the table, Alis fills the prince’s. The pages who had been assigned to serve the council had been so nervous that they nearly dropped the pitchers while still in the kitchen, so Gwen pulled Alis from her tapestry-cleaning for them both to step in instead.

Around them, the chamber is still as a grave.

A herald kneels before the king, trembling so much that Gwen can see his shoulders quivering. He keeps his head bowed nearly to the ground as Uther looks down on him and asks in a soft, level voice, “Repeat that, my good man.”

“A lady in black has been going through your allies’ towns, sire.” The messenger’s voice is reedy. “Rallying your people to come to Cornwall’s aid. And the people have been—answering.”

Gwen takes a step back from the table, careful not to make a sound against the harsh stone floor.

“By the hundreds, sire,” the messenger continues. “Hundreds march under her banner.”

Gwen takes another step back.

“Of no army, and of no lord. United only—”

Her back hits a wall, and she slowly leans against it, letting her spine cave.

“—only in their enmity towards you,” the man finishes faintly. “My king.”

She doesn’t dare look at Uther’s face right now, but she can imagine the fury in his eyes and the cold blankness of his face. “And where is this—army—now?” he asks.

“I—” the messenger gulps, “—do not know, my lord. They vanish among the trees and plains with some sort of sorcery. Some say—some say they can’t die. The lady makes them into gods.”

At that, the king laughs. It does nothing to break the ice forming around Gwen’s lungs. “You heralds have been too deep into your cups again,” the king says, a sneer audible in his voice. “Magicians are no gods. They’ll burn like anyone else.”

At Uther’s dismissal, the messenger clambers to his feet and flees. The grand door slams shut behind him with a hollow _clang_. Someone coughs into his fist, and then stillness settles again, thick enough to suffocate. Gwen studies the stones of the floor beneath her feet. All of them are cracked. The castle isn’t even old—it was built at the beginning of Uther’s regime, when he fancied himself happy—but already it is crumbling from the weight of all it must bear.

Lord Firmin starts in a delicate tone, “If this woman from Cornwall comes to your city, sire—” 

No one finishes his sentence. They are all thinking it, though; Gwen glances up, meeting Alis’ gaze for a fraction of a moment, and sees that Alis is thinking it too. If a sorceress were to come to Camelot’s citadel and offer succor to any who fight against the king, Uther would have few people left to rule.

“We flush the sorcerers out before she can come,” the king declares.

“But how, my king?” Constans sounds bemused. “We’ve tried everything. The raids turn up with nothing. Our informants are left in the dark. There hasn’t been a gold-eyed thief caught in the halls for the last two months.” Gwen doesn’t have to see his face to know that he is grimacing. “They are protecting their own.”

Gwen has spent the last two months telling the townspeople when Arthur is planning the patrols so they know to be careful. She keeps a cautious eye out for the younger pages and maids—they are the only ones who do magic in the halls, forgetting that they live under cruel walls—and reminds them of the places in the castle where Uther’s guards rarely deign to go. The seamstresses’ room, with its bright plaster walls and broad windows, is locked against the lords but not against those with gold in their eyes. The cook herself does not have the Goddess’ gift, but her two young sons do, and she watches the door as the maids practice their magic in the shadowed spaces between the hearths. They only have each other. How can they not protect their own?

Uther makes a contemplative noise. “We could withhold rations for the winter,” he muses. “No family in town will get their share until they surrender the traitors in their midst—”

“ _You can’t, sire._ ”

Arthur’s voice shatters through the room, ringing as metal on the anvil. His hands are braced on the table, fingers clenched so tightly that tendons show on the backs of his hands. “Sorcerers are one in five, one in ten,” he says tightly. “You—you’re forcing people to lead innocents to their death so that they might live through the winter—”

“They are not innocents if they are sorcerers,” Uther says sharply. “I am willing to accept the deaths of a few as collateral if it means my citadel will be secure and loyal—”

“You will be turning them to hate,” the prince says. “You cannot, sire, you can’t—”

“You do not have the authority to tell me what I can and cannot do.”

“My king.” Arthur lifts his head and meets his father’s eyes. “Please.”

Uther bares his teeth. “You will be silent, Arthur—”

“You leave them fighting two wars,” Arthur bursts out. “One against Cornwall, and one against you.”

All eyes in the room turn to him, moths towards a flame. Arthur rises from his chair, his arms shaking. “Father,” he says. “They have done nothing to deserve your anger. They only want to live.” He bows his head, raising his hands in supplication. “Please, sire. Let them live.”

It is so quiet in the room that Gwen can hear her heartbeat. She wonders if the cracks underneath her feet are actually widening, or if she is only imagining it—the fractures growing, the rumbling of a skeleton being broken in twain. There might be shouting outside. It could be servants in the halls. Pages on their break. The dead rising from their graves. Or only the dreaming of her mind.

“I do not know you of late, my son,” Uther says somberly. There is love in his voice, the sort of love which weighs like pockets full of stone, dragging down to the bottom of a river. “You have not been acting yourself. Your loyalties have wandered—or been twisted beyond your control.”

Someone gasps. Gwen lifts her head to meet Alis’ eyes, which are wide with horror, and Gwen wants to scream at her, to tell her to look away, to stay back, to agree with whatever the guards say once they come with their questions, to agree with the knights and say that Gwen was a traitor to the crown, because she would face the pyre ten times over to save her girls, and they need to live, or else nothing Gwen has done would ever be worth it—

“I see that you need saving, Arthur,” the king murmurs.

Metal clanks against stone as the guards at the door start to move. Gwen tightens her hands around her pitcher. She won’t spill the wine. The castle’s service has taken nigh-on a score of her years. She won’t spill the wine, if it’s the last thing she does. The knights’ steps are closer now, and she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin, bracing for the feel of their gauntlets on her shoulders.

Arthur shouts something—the start of her name or the start of _Father_ , she can’t tell, but it is drowned out by the door banging open and a knight crashing through.

“Your majesty!” the man screams. 

The king half-rises from his seat. “What is the meaning of this?” he demands.

“Sire—” the man pants, his breath coming hard. He must have run all the way through town. “I—we’re doomed, sire. They’re here. They’re—”

The guard crumples to the floor, an arrow protruding from the soft sliver of skin between his helmet and his neck-guard. Through the space where he once stood strides a woman in black armor, her blonde hair braided tightly along her head. She holds a gleaming grail in one hand. Scores of soldiers stream into the room behind her, brandishing their strung bows and swords at the assembled lords. Uther is dragged from his seat and pushed to his knees.

“In the name of Morgana the Priestess,” Morgause declares, “and Emrys the Druid, lords of Cornwall, I hereby claim the throne of Camelot.”


	3. The Butcher's Knives

_When Gwen comes back to Morgana’s chambers, she finds Morgana and Merlin hunched together over the main table. The air is filled with a faint scent of hot copper._

_“Who’s bleeding?” Gwen asks sharply._

_Morgana looks up, grinning. “Merlin wrapped it up for me, Gwen, don’t worry!” she says brightly, holding up her arm for Gwen’s inspection._

_Gwen knows that tone of voice: cheery, forceful, hell-bent. Of course Morgana wants to try the blood sigil. Once she’s set her mind on something, she won’t stop until Brigit herself gives the injunction, and maybe not even then. Gwen stalks up to the table, arms crossed._

_“And you let her?” she asks, leveling a glare at Merlin._

_Merlin held up his hands defensively. There are rune codices stacked four-high at his end of the table, and he looks giddy at the prospect of trying new magic. “You do realize, Gwen, that I technically cannot disobey her ladyship. The honor of refusing her goes to you and you alone.”_

_Technically, Gwen also cannot disobey Morgana, but technicalities have never stopped either of them. “Technically, none of us should even be doing this,” Gwen says out loud. There is a small bowl next to Morgana’s elbow, a glittering trinket meant to hold rose petals for their perfume. It’s filled with Morgana’s blood. “Please tell me you at least sterilized the knife.”_

_“Physician’s apprentice, remember?” Merlin dips his brush into the bowl. “Cleaned it and heated it and everything. It’s perfectly safe.”_

_Gwen doesn't dignify that with a response. Morgana eyes her, a little furrow of worry forming on her brow. “You—you aren’t really angry, are you, Gwen?” she asks. “I just thought we needed to try something. Anything. Anything at all, even if it doesn’t work, just to do something. Because after yesterday, I—I feel—”_

_She trails off, her eyes shuttering, and Gwen knows what her lady cannot bear to say: that she feels small, and helpless, and futile, and hopeless, the same words which have been repeating themselves in Gwen’s head all day, like a prayer or a curse. Almost against her will, Gwen feels the hard set of her mouth soften._

_“I think it’s a horrible idea,” she says. “But—I cannot blame you for wanting to try.”_

_Morgana laughs, the sound brash as a bell. “The Goddess does love fools and heroes the most.”_

_“That she does.” The third chair at the table creaks as Gwen sinks down in it. “Contrary bastard,” Gwen adds, almost to herself._

_She watches as Merlin prepares the rest of the spell. His fingers are swift and sure as he finishes the runes at the edges of the table in blood. She had thought him sweet and clumsy when they first met, but there is a surety in his hands and a shadow in his eyes now, of a future and a grief too large for him to bear. He confessed to her once that the Druids call him Emrys and say he is the most powerful among them—so what had brought him to Camelot, when the gold in his veins is so exuberant that it spills out of his skin?_

_What had made him stay?_

_She’s asked him many a time—when they were three cups deep and sprawled together on the floor of his room; or when they were sitting shoulder to shoulder, facing resolutely away from Morgana’s windows as the clamor of an execution swelled, and Morgana herself watched, her hands white-knuckled on the windowsill. His answer is the same every time. Something about prophecy. Something about destiny. Something about wars and blood on all their hands, and an insidious, unquenchable hope that one day, Arthur would set them all free._

I knew she was going to kill us, _Merlin told her one night._ You and Uther and Arthur and all his knights. All of us. She’s the thorn in the heart of Albion. The worm in the apple. That’s what the prophecy told me.

You were never going to tell her about your magic, were you, _Gwen said. It is no question._

_Merlin shrugged._

What made you change your mind?

You, Gwen. _Merlin turned to her then, a smile flickering across his face, like flame._ You loved her so much, and I thought—if you loved her, then she can’t be evil. So I started helping her. _His eyes went distant._ And maybe if I help her, then Arthur won’t die before he can free us.

_It was on the tip of Gwen’s tongue to tell him that if they can live with themselves while children were being tortured and burned, if Merlin’s vaunted destiny compelled him to sit by and do nothing as Morgana’s dreams threatened to break her—then Albion was already rotten to the core. But Merlin believes in Albion enough to frighten Gwen, and he believes in Arthur, as his duty and his liberation and his friend._

_He has no choice but to cling to his prophecy. Gwen understands that. If they lose faith in their futures, then what do they have left?_

_After Merlin finishes the drafting, Morgana puts the final piece of the spell in place—a spun-glass locket, where she usually keeps a lock of hair and a few petals of lavender. She starts the incantation, and the sound of magic slips around Gwen, fluttering like swallows’ feathers against her ears and throat. The blood on the table lights an incandescent red, almost too bright to look at, but Gwen cannot look away. Her ears roar as the very air reechoes with Morgana’s voice, amplifying her words with a ringing choir, and the colors unfurl red on red, blood on a sunset sea._

_Her eyes are gold. Her words are gold, too large for sound to contain, and they crash and collide in the air with a roar, and Gwen hears in them the clanging of ancient anvils and the clatter of horse-hooves and the beating wings of birds in flight—_

_The sigil on the table glitters salt-white and vanishes, making the light around Morgana snap into nothingness. Gwen lunges to catch her before she can hit her head against the edge of the table. Morgana groans, her eyes blinking open._

_“Did it work?” is the first thing out of her mouth._

_Merlin picks up the locket in the middle of the circle. The glass has gone a deep burnt burgundy, and it glitters when he shakes it, as though it has within itself a shard of sun. A slow grin breaks across his face, wide enough to crease his cheeks. “I think it did,” he breathes. “Holy shit. Gods above, Morgana, it worked. We did it.”_

_“Thank Brigit,” Morgana whoops. She props her hands on the table, struggling to regain her seat, and Gwen helps ease her up. Her voice is pure jubilation, betraying none of her exhaustion. “Mother above—we can do it, then. We can use this to help get people out.”_

_Merlin freezes with the charm halfway held to his eyes. “What?” he asks._

_He lowers the charm to the table, looking at Morgana like she is some strange apparition. When he speaks again, his voice is flat in a way that can only stem from surprise. “You—want to do this again?”_

_“Of course I do!” Morgana’s face is brighter than it has been for a long while. “Any time Uther throws an innocent into his dungeons, we can give them a blood charm and get them out, he’ll never burn them again—”_

_Merlin’s chair grates against the flooring as he abruptly stands up. “The warnings were the first thing Gaius taught me how to read,” he says tightly. “The one thing I know for sure about this spell is that casting this whole spell once will drain you. Doing more'll kill you, Morgana. We’re bending Brigit’s laws for the world here; she might’ve blessed us, but she doesn’t like us playing at being her equal—”_

_“And I don’t care.”_

_Morgana pushes herself to her feet. Her hands are braced on the table so tightly that they tremble. “I don’t care, Merlin,” she enunciates. “They are my people. If my blood will save them, then I will spill it. It is my duty, and their freedom is more than worth the price.” Her face softens for a moment as she regards him. “And I won’t be alone. You’ll be helping me.”_

_Merlin’s mouth falls open. He works his jaws in silence once—twice—thrice before any sound comes out. “No,” he manages in a strangled whisper. “No, Morgana, I’m not helping you kill yourself.”_

_“We have to. Innocent people are dying—”_

_“It’s a fool’s plan. And I’ll be dead, if anyone even suspects that I’m helping you,” Merlin says heatedly. He rakes his fingers through his hair. “You—do you know how much danger I’m in as is, just helping you? It’s my head on the chopping block if they find out.”_

_Morgana’s face falls. “You—you don’t care,” she says. “Sefa—a child was tortured under Uther’s watch. People are getting slaughtered. And you don’t care.”_

_Merlin’s eyes harden. “I know their names. I eat with them.” His voice is nearly cold. “I care, Morgana. Maybe more than you can ever know.”_

_The silence unfurls. Morgana and Merlin regard each other across the table, entirely still. This argument lingers in the currents of all their conversations, lurking beneath all the lighter quarrels they have about what types of spells they should learn, and what they should be using them for. Merlin wants to survive. Morgana wants to be free. She is in constant danger because of her magic, but she has never been forced to know fear like Merlin has—the sort of fear which settles intimately into bones and skin, and makes rooms so small it feels as though the castle walls are closing in, as the jaws of some great and unheeding beast._

_“You’d never do anything against Uther, would you?” Morgana says at last. It is not a question that requires an answer. “You just want to protect his son.”_

_Merlin’s words are low but clear. “And you just want to be a hero.”_

_Morgana recoils. She stares at Merlin wordlessly, and Merlin looks away. When he turns back to them, his face is set in apology. “I’m sorry, Morgana. I am. But you can’t risk yourself like that, it just—isn’t worth it. Not for such a small chance of success. We aren’t making any more.”_

_Gwen speaks up then. “No. You’ll finish this set and then make one more.”_

_Merlin’s head snaps over to Gwen. First he, then Morgana start with their objections, and Gwen holds up a hand, quieting them. “One set for each of you,” she explains. She picks up the charm and holds it up to her eyes, tracking the shimmer in the glass. “It’s meant as an escape route, and we are going to prepare it as such. Uther’s fear is growing by the day. Sefa’s trial was only a warning.”_

_Gwen loves them both. She loves them enough, she hopes, to join them in friendship even if they cannot yet understand each other. “If worst comes to worst,” she says, meeting first Morgana’s eyes, and then Merlin’s, “if either of you is found out, this will get you out. You can transport to the stables at the edge of town, you’ll steal a horse, and you’ll get out.”_

_She reaches out and squeezes both their hands. “I can’t lose either of you. Please. Promise me. If anything happens—you ride like hell.”_

_Merlin works his jaw in silence. “Where—would we even go?” he asks slowly. “We can’t stay in Camelot. Nor any of the surrounding kingdoms, they won’t give us asylum for fear of Uther's wrath. We’ll—we’ll have go to the edge of Albion and take a ship to the gods-damn continent if we want to be free—”_

_“Cornwall,” Morgana suddenly declaures._

_Merlin blinks at her. “That’s barely even a kingdom.”_

_“Aye, but it’s far enough away that Uther won't pursue us, and it's still tied to the Gorlois line, so I am owed asylum there.” She is holding on to Gwen’s hand so tightly that Gwen can feel the sweat of her skin. “And there’s a settlement of Druids next to the main citadel there; they hold two permanent seats on the council. They’ll take you in and train you.”_

_“How do you know all this?” Merlin demands._

_Morgana takes the silver bracelet from her wrist, setting it down with a sharp clack. “Morgause,” she says softly. “My sister. She told me she’s waiting for me there.”_

\-----

This is not the first time Gwen has been in Camelot’s dungeons. 

She spent a night there for shouting at the crown prince when she was fifteen summers old and tired of sweeping and scrubbing while he fed prime meat to his hounds. Her second time was when she was imprisoned by Arthur himself when the Afanc came to Camelot and caused the plague in the wrong season. Many more times, she has stood on the other side of the bars, visiting the people condemned for sorcery. Sometimes, she even manages to help them get out. This is, however, undoubtedly the first time she is sharing the cell with the crown prince of Camelot, with the king himself—gods above, this is Uther, who had just tried to arrest her, she would laugh if the world did not feel distant and strange—in the main cell across from her, crammed in with his councillors. The guards, stripped of their weapons and armor, are scattered across the other cells.

The dungeons are clean but still grimy in the way old and hidden things are, caught in a perpetual twilight by the illumination from the spare torches. The light is too dim for Gwen to see the ceiling, but she knows that it is low. She can feel it bearing down on her head, and every stone of the castle on top of it, weight innumerable. The air within is stale against her tongue, like it has known neither wind nor sunlight. They are in the belly of the rotting beast. There can be no light here.

Two of Morgause’s soldiers clamber down the stairs, their footsteps softer than Gwen is used to. The men and women of Cornwall do not wear plate and mail; their armor is leather hauberks layered over woolen tunics, the sort of thing hunters might wear. The only crest they show is a strip of fabric in black and gold, tied around their right arm like a knight’s token at a tourney. Gwen clambers to her feet as the soldiers stop in front of their cell. Arthur does so as well, pushing her behind him as their door is unlocked.

One of the soldiers is a man with sandy hair. “We’re here for the maid,” he announces.

“You are not going to take her,” Arthur growls. “I forbid it.”

The other soldier, a short woman with shoulders like a baker’s, smiles at that. “And what are you going to do to me if I disobey, little princeling?” she asks, leaning her hip against the cell door. “Run mewling to your father?”

Gwen pulls Arthur back right as he lurches towards the two guards. “No, my lord,” she says sharply. “It’s not worth it.”

The guards share a smile. “You should listen to the maid, sire,” the woman says, her voice arch. “She seems to have a good deal of sense.” She looks Gwen over the way Gwen would a hand of cards. “Are you going to come with us willingly, my lady? Or will we have to clap you in chains and drag you along?”

Gwen lifts her chin, much as she did when Uther’s guards came for me. “Not willingly, no.” Her voice is hoarse but steady. “But you won’t be dragging me.”

She steps out from behind Arthur, and they take hold of her arms and lead her away. The prince’s shouting is cut short as the dungeon door slams shut. Gwen blinks at the brightness of the corridor outside. The castle looks the same—pale and bloated walls punctured with blinking windows, rafters as rib-bones, tongues of red pennants hanging, maids securing scurrying to and fro, their heads lowered. She had half-expected it to be brighter, somehow. Her eyes go to one of the wide windows along the corridor, searching for a hint of what had happened in the lower town. She stumbles at the dark shapes she can see being arrayed on biers in the courtyard. 

Burnings. Funerals. No matter the king, that’s all this castle ever sees. 

The two guards lead Gwen to the throne room, before the single grand dais. They haven’t had time to change all the banners yet; the only difference in the room is the grand expanse of black hung on the far wall, blazoned with three gold hawthorn flowers and a patterned goblet, and the pedestal set up next to the throne, where a single metal cup sits—the same cup on the banner, which Morgause had been holding when she first entered the council room. Morgause herself is sitting on the throne. She looks up at their entry, straightening from her lazy sprawl. 

“Hello, my lady,” Morgause says.

The two guards let go of her once they reach the foot of the dais. Gwen’s heart thuds at the base of her throat and in her ears. She bows at once, holding her spine bent for a count of five before she rises again. “My Lady Morgause,” she murmurs, keeping her gaze trained on the floor. “I do not know if you were searching for someone else, but—I am no lady.”

There is a beat of silence, and then Morgause starts laughing. The sound rings off of the rafters, filling the room with the ghostly echoes of sound. “You two can leave now,” she tells her guards offhandedly.

“What?” the woman asks. 

“You heard her. She isn’t a lady. She doesn’t even have a knife on her, or a scrap of cold iron. What do you think a maid’s going to do to me?”

Gwen tracks the guards’ movements with the sound of their feet on the flagstones. They exit through the main door, grumbling between themselves, and leave her alone with Morgause. The woman’s easy dismissal makes her grit her teeth, but Gwen can’t even say that she is wrong. Her knife is gone from her waist; her hairpins can pick locks but are useless against a sorceress—the only things she has left are her hands and the words from her lungs, against a woman who has already killed gods know how many of her people. 

“Look at me.”

Gwen flinches at the sharpness in Morgause’s voice. She still keeps her eyes lowered—she’s only a maid, after all. Who is she to look at her new king as if they were equals?

“Look at me, Guinevere. I don’t trust a woman unless I can see her eyes.”

Slowly, jerkily, Gwen lifts her eyes. She looks like Morgana, with her stormy eyes and proud nose. But Morgause’s gaze is cold as coins, where Morgana’s smiles always reached her eyes and lit her gaze from within. “Do you want me to give you the choice?” Morgause asks lightly. “To join me in victory, or count your days from behind bars as I am crowned?”

Gwen swallows past the dryness in her throat. “Would you trust in my allegiance if I gave it to you?” she asks. “My lady.”

“Not as far as you can spit.”

Gwen nearly smiles at that. “Then I see no reason why we should bother.” She steels herself and then climbs the steps of the dais, averting her eyes from the goblet on the pedestal. There had been rumors of a magic cup, a grail that made men live forever, but surely that was just legend.

“Why am I here, Morgause?” she asks baldly.

“I don’t entirely know, myself,” Morgause replies. “Maybe I just want to talk to you. See if you are nearly as grand and mighty as they say. Or maybe I want you shot before you stir sedition among my men.” The corners of her mouth tilt upwards into a grin that leaves the rest of her face unchanged. “But my sister would raise her own army against me if I harmed one hair on your head. So alas—you are to live.”

The mention of Morgana makes Gwen still. Morgause’s grin grows wider at her clear discomfort. “Did you expect her to be here?” Morgause leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Did you think that you would end on different sides of a war, when you sent her and the little Druid of yours to Cornwall?”

“Aye.” There’s no harm in admitting that fact. “I did.”

“I’ve heard much about you, my Lady Guinevere.” Morgause tilts her head, bird-like. The gesture is another thing that she and Morgana share. “If it had been her sitting where I sit—would you have joined her?”

There are already pyres being built, a new war being fought without respite from the last. “No,” Gwen says.

Morgause’s eyebrows rise. “Would you have understood? Would you have _forgiven_ her?” She twists the word like a knife between the ribs.

A laugh breaks out of Gwen’s chest unexpectedly. “Forgiven?” she echoes. “No. But understood? Aye.” A thousand times over.

The wood of the throne creaks as Morgause settles back into it. “I knew to beware of you,” she says, sounding torn between curiosity and contempt. “It was supposed to be Morgana on this throne, Guinevere. She has an actual claim, as Uther’s daughter—aye, daughter,” she confirms, smirking at Gwen’s dumbfounded stare. “We have the same mother, her and I. The Lord Gorlois was Uther’s ally in his war to consolidate his kingdom, and he was often away. Vivienne took a lord of Camelot’s court to her bed and bore me, and she took the king to her bed and bore Morgana. And then Gorlois found out, and she now lies in a shallow grave.”

Morgause spreads out her hands. “This is my claim to Camelot, Lady Guinevere. My dead mother, who met her doom because of your king’s follies.”

“I am sorry for your mother,” Gwen says. “But I do not think that gives you leave to kill.”

“What gives your king his leave, them?” Morgause asks mockingly.

“Nothing,” Gwen snaps. “He’s a murderer.”

“Then you cannot fault me my intentions.” Light sparks around Morgause’s outstretched hands, flooding the throne room with a flash of brilliance. “I am here to restore justice. Magic will rule again in Camelot.”

Rule. Not live. Those two are very different things.

“Why is my lady not with you?” Gwen asks at last, once the air in the room has settled back into its ordinary radiance.

Morgause huffs. “Can’t you guess?”

When Gwen doesn’t answer, Morgause forges on. “She refused me. I brought her into the order of the Mother’s Priestesses, taught her everything that I knew, gave her a council seat, gave her power she had never even dreamt of. I made her great.” Morgause’s laugh is one Gwen knows too well, coming from her own throat—unhappy, disbelieving, bitter. “And then I told her that Camelot was hers for the taking. The throne is hers. She could free her people, the way she had always dreamt. She dithered about the lives which would be lost, but this is war. She knew there would be a cost. I almost convinced her to hoist the banner of Cornwall against you—and then I mentioned you. How she could finally take you back and make you hers. And do you know what she did?”

Gwen shakes her head. Morgause scoffs. “She told me that you would never be anyone’s woman save your own. And there on, all she would think about were conscience and right.” The words are spat as a curse. “As if we can fight the butcher with anything other than his own knives. And then she refused me.”

Morgause rises from the throne and steps close enough to Gwen that she can see the gold in her eyes. “You, Guinevere,” she breathes. “You are the worm in the apple. The thorn in our dream of Albion.”

“If you fight the butcher with his own knives,” Gwen says in a low voice, “then you will become no better than him. You’ll be no worse, my lady. But you’ll not be much better.”

Morgause takes another step closer, and Gwen steps back, making sure to teeter on her feet, as if nervous. “No better than the butcher?” the woman echoes. “Do you know how many that monster has killed? Do you know how much has been lost to him?”

“No,” Gwen whispers. “None of those can count those losses. But I do not look at him and see a monster.” She stares Morgause in the eyes. “I look at him and see a king.”

And then she flings herself backwards, into the cup’s pedestal—

—and screams as she is frozen in mid-air, suspended there by what feels like iron briars digging into every inch of her flesh. Morgause’s right is clenched in a fist, crackling with blue-white lightning.

“There is the lady I was expecting,” Morgause says. Her voice is soft and satisfied, and she is smiling truly for the first time Gwen has seen. With the uncurling of her fingers, the thorns release her, and Gwen collapses to the ground, groaning. The two guards enter at Morgause’s signal. “I’m sure you have all sorts of questions about how quickly I came here, my lady, but I’m afraid we've run out of time for today. I will tell you this though; normally, it would’ve taken me half a day to besiege the front gates. But luckily—” she beckons to the hanging where the servants’ entry to the room is hidden, “—someone showed me a better way.”

The tapestry is pulled back. Sefa steps through.

In the silence that follows, the guards haul Gwen to her feet and shove her towards the doors. She wrenches her head back to catch a glimpse of Sefa’s face, blank and still.

“Have a good evening, my Lady Guinevere,” Morgause calls. 

This time, the guards do have to drag her away. 

\-----

_When the guards open the council chamber on the morning of the trial, Gwen is the first through the doors. The ring of keys she was given when she was named Morgana’s chamberlain hangs from her belt, a counterpoint to the signet on the littlest finger of her left hand, where all the high ladies wear the mark of their families. She had braided her hair with extra care this morning, pinning it in a tight crown around her head, and Morgana helped her with her carmine and kohl, making her face into a mask. When she was finished, Gwen looked at her face in Morgana’s silver mirror and did not recognize herself._

_Good. She cannot be herself today._

_Two other women file into the room behind her—Alis and Vera, with their hair braided neatly and their faces plain, and their aprons starched and pristine. Plain colors, Gwen had told them last night in the kitchens. Plain shoes. As plain as you can find. Cover your hair with a kerchief. Don’t wear anything that would draw the king’s or the council’s eye. That should be their job as maids anyways, to disappear, but Gwen knows Alis for her loud laugh, and how she always talks about her son in Astolat, and she knows Vera the way she skips down the stairs, taking them two at a time no matter how heavy a basket or platter she has to carry. She doesn’t know them now, just as she does not know herself._

_Leah follows behind the maids. The charm of the Mother’s mark she always wears is absent today, leaving her neck pale and bare. She wears a patched shawl around her shoulders, and covers her hair with a wimple. Morgana is next to her in a resplendent gown of Pendragon red and gold, drawing every eye in the room towards her. Behind them, the people of the lower town file into the chamber, filling the audience seats in the back of the room past their capacity. Whether they love them or judge them, Leah and her daughter are their own. They will be there when Sefa’s fate is decided._

_The council is already seated—a score of men in robes of velvet and damask, with Uther at their head. Arthur stands at his father’s right shoulder in his full mail and cloak, his circlet on his head, every inch the crown prince. Gwen looks down at her own feet. She isn’t allowed to look any of them in the eyes. She doesn't want to._

_Footsteps clank, metal against metal. They drag something heavy and unresisting into the hall. The doors close resoundingly._

_“Let us begin,” Uther proclaims._

_While the king enumerates the reasons and rules of the trial, and expounds on the dangers of magic in his citadel, Gwen raises her eyes from the ground to look at Sefa. The girl is kneeling on the hard stone floor, with two guards towering above her hunched shoulders. She is still wearing the kirtle she had worn on Midwinter, before she was arrested right as the sun rose. It hung loose on her at the feast, but now it is even looser._

_Sefa looks ill, and wan, and grubby, and worn to the bone from fear. But she is still alive. And if they do not have all the gods on their side, by the next candlemark, she might be none of these. She might be gone._

_Uther asks her how she pleads. She pleads innocent._

_More footsteps sound. Gwen glances up at the front of the room in time to see a man step out from a shadowed corner. He looks utterly ordinary—neither tall nor short, neither young nor old, not tall enough to be lanky but not large enough to be stocky. He is pale, as many in Camelot are pale, and his hair is brown, like dust. His clothes can belong to any man in the lower town. Gwen could not have described him if she tried. He makes her blood run cold._

_“Are these the girl’s household, then?” he asks the room. His voice is as nondescript as his person._

_Gwen drops her eyes again when Uther looks in their direction. “I suppose they are,” the king says. “They’ll want to speak to you, Malen. In defense of the witch.”_

_“No witch yet, sire.” Malen—the witchfinder, he has to be, he has nothing of Aredian’s menace, but that only makes Gwen more wary—says. “I have yet to make certain that she has the corruption of magic.”_

_“Did you not listen to the charges?” Uther demands. “She used magic to trip my knight. She’s been sneaking around and healing the peasants in the lower town. What more evidence do you need?”_

_“None of that is evidence, sire. It is hearsay and speculation.” Malen stops in front of Sefa and looks down at her. His expression does not change. There is no hatred, no disgust—just curiosity. “You brought me here to ascertain whether or not this girl has magic, not to condemn her outright. I am concerned only with the truth.”_

_A principled witchfinder. Gwen doesn’t know whether to laugh at him or spit in his face. Where in the hells did Uther find him?_

_“Men are not at their most alert on Midwinter,” Malen says. “And many things look miraculous under the heavy hand of cider—this is no insult to your men, sire. Only a condemnation of our communal vices.” He looks to the five of them, standing in a row before the audience seats. “Who among you claims the girl?”_

_Gwen steps forward from the row. She had argued with Leah near a full bell yesterday about who should claim Sefa, and in the end, Gwen had won. Leah cannot afford the scrutiny, not with how close she is to the accused, and not with her own secrets. “I am Guinevere of Camelot,” she declares. “I am the sworn chamberlain to the Lady Morgana’s household, and Sefa works under my authority. Her conduct is my responsibility, and I and my household will speak for her.”_

_“Her conduct is your responsibility, my lady?” Malen echoes. “Such phrasing might be fatal, given what she has been accused of.”_

_“Only fatal if you proclaim that she is a witch, my lord,” Gwen says. She dares to lift her chin a little higher. “And you said that your business is that of truth-telling. I am telling you the truth when I say that Sefa is innocent.”_

_The witch-finger turns his gaze to Gwen, and for the first time shows a flicker of emotion: pity. “You speak with conviction, my lady,” he tells her. “Now we shall see if your conviction holds true.”_

_Gwen is the first to testify, with Morgana a steady presence at her side. She tells of how Sefa joined the castle’s service after her father vanished—Ruadan the traitor, Gwen is sure to clarify, who befuddled and abandoned his family—to help her mother make ends meet. How she was a good maid, sometimes punctual and usually striving to complete her tasks, which is more than can be said of many in their first year in the castle’s service. Vera and Alis also give their testimony, painting a picture of a quiet and shy child who nonetheless made friends in her own way, who was quick with her hands, and always the first to run to help whenever someone burned their hands in the kitchens._

_Malen nods when they are done. “If you all had told me that she was a saint, I would have known you were lying, and sent her straight to the pyre,” he says._

_Only the presence of the king keeps Gwen from driving him through for his sanctimonious words. The presence of the king, and of Sefa and Leah, who are counting on her now. She grits her teeth and repeats, “I am telling you the truth in what I say. My lord,” she adds._

_“I believe that you are.” The witchfinder looks over to Leah then—the only one of their band of five who has not yet spoken. “And you, my lady? What is your claim on the girl?”_

_“She is my own,” Leah bites out, and then she is silent._

_Malen’s gaze sharpens. “You are the apothecary in the lower town, then, my lady.”_

_“Aye.”_

_“The Druid’s wife.”_

_“No longer,” Leah says. Her voice doesn’t break, but it is a close thing._

_Malden tilts his head. “Why did you not speak for her just now?”_

_“Because she is my daughter. Would you have trusted my words as your precious truth?”_

_Gwen hides a flich at Leah’s tone, fighting the urge to step between her and the witchfinder. She watches as Malen turns his uncanny gaze towards Leah. The quiet between them stretches tight._

_“Very well,” he finally says, and abruptly turns away._

_At Malden’s gesture, two pages shuffle in a small table draped in cloth. He pulls the cloth away to reveal iron pins and rope and pincers, set neatly in the same trays Gwen uses to serve Morgana her morning meals. Gwen’s stomach drops. Mother’s hells._

_“As true as I believe your testimony to be, my lady,” the witchfinder tells Gwen, “it too is only hearsay when it comes to matters of magic. There is only one way to prove innocence, for an accused witch—”_

_“No,” Morgana shouts._

_She takes two furious steps towards the man before Gwen pulls her back. “You—you monster, she’s a girl, you will not put a single pin into her hand, do you hear me? Not a single pin.”_

_Malen regards Morgana placidly. “The trials must be done, to prove her innocence,” he says. His voice sounds almost gentle. Gwen can feel Morgana shaking beneath her palm. “It sometimes takes a push, to force sorcerers to reveal their true natures. If I don’t perform these final tests, I have no choice but to presume her guilty of the corruption, and I will surrender her to our kingdom’s justice. ‘Tis the way these trials go, I’m afraid.”_

_“This is no trial,” Morgana snarls. “It’s torture.”_

_“If she is innocent, this is how she will prove it.” The witchfinder turns his level eyes to Gwen. “As you are the one who claims the girl, I require your consent, my lady. I will of course understand if you do not give it. It is no easy pain to bear, especially for one so young. And given the girl’s—family—” and here he raises his voice, not enough for it to seem marked, but enough for it to surely travel to where Leah stands, “—she could still be whisked away tonight, and spared both this pain and her final day. Think on this carefully, my lady.”_

_It is a strange thing for a witchfinder to say. The king and his council certainly think so, given their murmurings of surprise and discontent. Gwen understands the man perfectly._

_“Alis and Vera, you are dismissed,” she announces. She hears the rustle of their skirts as they bow and hasten away, slipping through the servants’ entryways. Gwen turns to Morgana next. “My lady, I need you to leave. Take Leah with you.”_

_Morgana hisses. “Gwen? You’re going to let him—”_

_Gwen digs her fingers into Morgana’s arm. “Take Leah with you, my lady,” she repeats._

_Morgana turns and looks at the apothecary. Her eyes widen, and she nods once, hastily, before hurrying to where Leah stands. Leah refuses to take Morgana’s offered hand. “If you will be putting my daughter through a witchfinding, I will be here for her,” Leah says fiercely. “You cannot order me away.”_

_“You should not have to watch this," Gwen tells her. "Leah, please—"_

_"Damn right I shouldn't have to watch this." Leah's voice cracks. "My lady. Don't let him do this. Don't—don't do this to her. "_

_It takes a push to force sorcerers to reveal their true natures. Brigit damn her, but she cannot let two more people burn. She will not. In that fraction of a moment, Gwen begs for forgiveness from all the gods. She won't be forgiven so easily while she walks on the earth._

_“Leave, Leah,” Gwen commands, her voice harsh and ungiving. "Now."_

_She meets Leah's desperate eyes without flinching. She can flinch later. Morgana tugs gently at the woman's arm, and she turns away, moving stiffly as though her limbs no longer obeyed her. The guards open the door for them, and then they are gone._

_Gwen turns back to Malen. His gaze hasn't lost its shred of pity, but it is appraising now, calculating in a way Gwen understands._

_"Shall I begin, my lady?" the witchfinder asks._

_Gwen squares her shoulders. "As you will," she says._

_Most of the audience is gone by the time he finishes. Even some of the lords are turning their heads away, shielding their eyes from the trial they themselves put on. Arthur—he looks half-sick where he stands by his father, looking to the far wall, his eyes frantic and glassy._

_Gwen watches. She watches the entire time. And after Malen turns to Uther and pronounces that she is_ innocent, sire, not a drop of magic in her _, after Uther begrudgingly dismisses the council, and the audience filters out of the door, and the lords drift away, and Gwen unlocks her knees and half-rushes, half-falls to Sefa's side, after she scrabbles at the rope tied around Sefa's purple-red wrists and presses her kerchief to her mouth and her neck and her bloodied fingers where her nails no longer are, after she screams for Arthur to_ move, move, move _, and they together carry Sefa to the physician's rooms, where Leah is already waiting—_

_—Gwen throws up, splattering her skirts with sick._

\-----

Sefa is standing behind Morgause the next time Gwen sees her. She looks—better. Gods above, she looks whole and hale, which is so much better than she did when Gwen last saw her. There is a jewelry box in her unscarred hands, and her hair is braided neatly along her head. The tunic she wears is a bright shade of goldenrod, crisply pressed. She looks dressed to go to a festival. This is a festival—a coronation, no less, the grandest of days a dynasty can have, heralding a new age for the kingdom. When they bring Gwen up onto the balcony, with Uther and Arthur and two of the old council lords behind her, the sunlight is so bright that it feels like it’s burning her. 

Morgause’s soldiers are more careful this time, keeping crossbows and longswords trained on them for the entirety of their ascent to the viewing station. A throne is already set up, draped in black and gold, with heralds flanking it, trumpets in hand. Morgause is in her full plate and cape, the blackened metal shimmering like onyx under the day. Gwen wants to hope. She prays to Brigit for something good to come from this conquest, but Brigit is never in the habit of answering—not her, not the women who burn with the Goddess’ name on their lips, not the men who pray as the sword comes down. The sky above her head is cloudless, bright as a bell and unheeding. 

The heralds lift their trumpets to their lips. Brazen notes ring out over the courtyard, quieting the assembled crowd.

Morgause steps to the railing, and two of the guards shove Uther forward to join her. A murmur rises at the sight of the king, gaunt and dirty, stripped of all his gold. It is not an unhappy sound.

“People of Camelot,” Morgause calls. “You see before you your old king.”

An uneasy quiet, punctured by scattered jeers. “A choice now stands before you. I have claimed the throne, for the sorcerers’ kingdom of Cornwall. Swear your allegiance to me and drink at my table, and you shall have the blessings of the Mother for all your life. Your land will prosper. Your water will run clear. Magic will reign again in Camelot.” She gestures at Uther now, never turning away from the seething crowd. “And to those who hold allegiance to your old king—I ask that you reconsider. For too long has his reign held our people low. That ends today.”

Uther’s two lords are dragged to the center of the balcony. “I know loyalty is a deep and sacred thing,” Morgause says. Her voice is softer now, almost kind. “But this choice is a clear one, and it is yours to make. These men chose wrong.”

Conquest is a knife. Conquest is a flame. There is no such thing as a good war. Gwen knows the dread command before it comes.

The words still shock her, when they do.

There is a whizzing noise. Something flashes, almost too quick for the eye to follow. Gwen flinches away, squeezing her eyes shut, but the dull thudding of two bodies still reaches her ears. When she opens her eyes again, the lords are on the stone floor, arrows protruding from their chests. The balcony must be too high for the people to realize what had happened to the men, because it is only when their bodies are hoisted over the railing and thrown into the crowd below that the screaming starts.

“Let no one touch these men’s remains,” Morgause ordains, her voice cutting through the shocked cries. “Let no one bury them. Let no prayers convey them to the lands of the blessed. These were the laws of your old king, regarding the burial of the Goddess’ chosen. I have guards stationed across the town, and their arrows are far-reaching. If you stand and defy me, this too will be your fate.”

The square is silent now. Gwen clenches her jaw to keep from crying out. Firmin had slaughtered the Druids to gain his lordship, and Constans orders servants whipped for stealing, and she’ll be in the ground herself before she mourns a council lord, yet still—yet still—

“That,” Morgause says, “is only meted justice.”

She seats herself on the throne. Sefa comes to her side and opens the box in her hands, revealing the crown embossed with flowers which had been in the castle treasury ever since Ygraine died. The last time someone had worn that crown, magic still ran free in Camelot. Gwen cannot make her eyes stray from the little splatters of blood staining the flagstones. She’s seen executions in the citadel ever since she came of age. This one is no different—lives extinguished like candle flames, a hungry castle fed. It never hurts any less. She wonders who will have to clean it.

Morgause sets the crown on her own head. Uther struggles against the guards holding him, but to no avail. They pull him from the railing and shove him to his knees in front of her. He stares at her with blank eyes, raising his chin high. 

“I didn’t want to make you a martyr, my king,” Morgause murmurs, barely loud enough to reach Gwen’s ears. “But go on. Give me a reason.”

Uther’s shoulders are square and defiant. The guard standing behind him readies her sword, hefting it into the light. Gwen despises bloodshed, and will never glory in how a flick of the wrist can end a life, and the thought of the two bodies lying in the courtyard now is enough to make her chest ache. But she cannot revile Uther’s death. She searches and searches, and feels nothing except a dull, weary triumph.

“Father,” Arthur pleads.

His voice is high and despairing; he sounds as he did in council, when he was begging for Uther to spare their people. It hits Gwen like a hammer's blow to hear it out here, under the weight of all his kingdom’s eyes. Pendragons so seldom beg.

Morgause motions to her guard, and the prince screams, a ragged sound, _no, Father, please—_

At his son’s cries, Uther bows his head. 

Camelot is fallen. A hush falls over the whole castle. Morgause looks down at the man at her feet and smiles.

They are brought back down to the dungeons. Uther is thrown back into his cell—alone now, without his men around him. The other cells are empty; the guards and other lords must have either sworn to Morgause in the meanwhile, or led down to the pyres. After the door is locked behind them, Arthur scrabbles vainly through the bars to reach his father. “Father,” he says. “Sire—are you—”

“You will be silent,” Uther barks.

The old king kneels down on the floor, facing away from the two of them. Gwen tugs Arthur back, untangling his hands from the bars. He resists until he doesn’t anymore, slumping against her, dead weight, and she staggers down to the base of one of the walls, holding him. He turns and hides his face against her shoulder. He is crying.

Her head comes to rest against the wall. She closes her eyes but does not let herself weep. She can't, with the king's heavy presence so close.

None of them talk in the hours that follow. Gwen wonders if this is the first time the king and his son have felt the full weight of the castle on their heads—the stone, the mortar, the thundering of feet as the turgid heartbeat shaking through the corpse which has consumed them. She’s had to scrub blood from its flagstones and learn her way around the twisting corridors of its innards. She never had the luxury of seeing it clean. 

The door to the dungeons opens. Light footsteps descend down the stairs, long skirts brushing on the floor. A pale figure emerges from the gloom, a tray of food clutched in her hands. 

Gwen’s knees nearly give as she levers herself up and goes to the bars. Sefa gives the old king his food first, pushing a plate of parsnips through the slot in the door. Uther doesn’t react. The girl turns to Gwen’s cell next, sliding the rest of the tray through to them. “My lady,” Sefa says in greeting.

Gwen picks the tray up. Her hands tremble as she feels the threads of old anger—not at Sefa, never at Sefa, how can she blame a girl for wanting to live?—uncoil, churning her stomach with sick. “Lady no longer, Sefa.” Her voice is unsteady. “You look well.”

Sefa smiles. “You should eat, Lady Gwen,” she says by way of a response.

“Thank you.” The words feel like ash in Gwen’s mouth. “But—I am not hungry.”

Sefa steps a little closer to them. “You should eat,” she repeats. “The plates get cold fast.”

Arthur clambers up to his feet, glaring at the girl. “Don’t eat it, Gwen,” he rushes to say. “Goddess knows what sort of poison she’s put in in the food—”

But it’s not the food, it’s the plates. That was what Sefa said, the plates get cold fast. Gwen feels around the edges of the tray and then goes still. There is a small glass vial tucked beneath the plate of parsnips. In the dimness, it looks black, but Gwen knows that it would be a deep burgundy in the light. Something within it glitters when she brushes her fingers against it, like a fragment from the sun.

She says, “Sefa—”

The girl leans in close enough to brush her cheeks against the bar of the cell and drops her voice to the softest whisper, barely distinguishable above her breathing. “My Lord Emrys told me where to find it in his old chambers. He said—something about a sword in the lake of Avalon that’ll help you with the grail—”

“You need to get out,” Gwen cuts across her. Guilt makes bile pool in the back of her throat, but she tucks the vial into her kirtle nonetheless. “You need to go, before they find you—”

“They won’t find me. They won’t even suspect me. Who suspects a maid?” 

Were it not for her fear for Sefa’s sake, Gwen would smile at hearing her own words used against her. Sefa forges on. “That cup—be careful, my lady. It makes her soldiers live forever, and it gives them strength enough to lift an ox, but it gives their minds to her as well. You have to drink it willingly, but from then on, you trade your will for more life. She’s started using it in the lower town already.” She grins suddenly. “I only pretended to drink from it. You always told us never to take a drink from someone we didn’t know.”

How can Gwen be forgiven so easily? The words bubble up her throat, so many that they turn meaningless in face of what she needs to say, and all she manages to choke out at last is a paltry, “Thank you.”

Sefa dips her head in a nod. “I don’t believe in much, Lady Gwen,” she murmurs. “But I do believe in you.”

Gwen claps her hand to her mouth for a moment, pressing down on the sounds which threaten to escape her. Her eyes are stinging. Sefa is lingering by the bars, her eyes clear and hopeful even in the low light, and Gwen—gods damn her to her grave—has been worn so thin that she cannot help but be selfish. “How are they?” she asks in a rush. “Sefa—you said you spoke with Merlin, how is he? Are they safe? Are they happy?”

At Merlin’s name, Arthur comes to the door, crowding next to Gwen to hear Sefa more clearly. “They are, my lady,” the girl says. “Lord Emrys—he summoned his first storm naught a week ago. We stood in a field on a cloudless day and watched as he called lightning from the heavens and bent it to his will. It was beautiful. My father says he’ll teach him to turn the seasons next.”

Sefa’s affection for her father is unabashed in her voice—when Gwen last saw her in Camelot, she had thought that she would never see Ruadan again. It is no less a miracle than the storm she describes.

“Lady Morgana scries for the town,” Sefa continues. “She sits on the council, on Gorlois’ old seat, and between her and Lord Emrys, Seeing the earth and changing it, we had the best harvest anyone in town can remember. My lady Saw that I would do this and was—furious. She said you’d never forgive her, if I got hurt.” She then sticks her chin up, mouth set in a moue of stubbornness that makes Gwen want to laugh and cry, all at once, and declares, “But this is my choice. And I want to help you.”

Gwen reaches for Sefa’s hand where it is curled around the prison bar and squeezes tight. Her fingers are warm, and her smile is brief but bright. The girl turns and leaves, darting up the stairs with swift and sure motions, just as she had in the castle above when Gwen was still her lady. Gwen doesn’t dare acknowledge the lightness creeping into her, not yet. Hope is a blade that cuts doubly, and she doesn’t know if she can bear any more blood today.

Arthur turns to her. There is no relief in his eyes—if anything, his face is more fearful. He opens his mouth to start asking his questions, and Gwen holds her finger up to her lips. “Tomorrow,” she mutters. “Trust me.”

The vial rests against her heart, glass warming against her skin. 


	4. Still a King

They appear with a stinging crackle behind the town stables, covered head to toe in dirt. Arthur staggers away from her, whirling about at the trees in bewilderment. “What in the hells?” he pants. “Gwen—what—”

Gwen’s hand is covered in blood and broken glass, gleaming wetly in the weak morning light. She had waited until a morning guard came to take their empty plates and trays away before grabbing Arthur’s arm and activating the charm. The glass crumpled like a dry leaf under her fingers, and the world around them blinkered in a swirl of color before reshaping itself into trees and open air. She digs out her handkerchief and scrapes the blood and glass from her hand, tucking it back into her belt. Glass won't do them a lot of good, but as it stands, they don’t even have a knife. 

“Morgana and Merlin prepared two charms for escape,” Gwen explains, scrubbing her hands in the dirt to get her hands clear of Merlin’s blood. “They only used one. I buried the anchors out here last winter, so the spell would bring them here and they could get to the horses quick.” She starts to brush the dirt from her face but then stops, reconsidering. “No one will think it’s us, if they see us like this. We should get moving.”

So early in the morning, the stable owner is still asleep, and the only stablehand is yawning at the front stall, half-asleep as he curries a mount. Gwen and Arthur sneak around the back and take one of the sturdy draft horses the tanner or carpenter rent whenever they have to take their wares to the next town. They buckle the tack on him, only briefly checking the fit of the bridle and rein before they gallop out along the main road, the two of them sharing one saddle. The stablehand shouts indignantly in their wake.

The people at the stables probably spit on her name now. This is the third horse she’s gotten stolen from them in the last year alone.

Gwen pulls on the reins, directing the horse south and west, into the woods surrounding Camelot. They go between the trees, which are painted in brilliant hues of russet and gold, and the horse’s hooves crackle on the fallen leaves like wet wood in a fire. She doesn’t know how long they have left before the guards realize that they are gone. “We need to go faster,” she calls behind her, and Arthur digs his heels into the horse’s flank, urging him on.

They break out of the woods and thunder across the meadows, veering off the main roads and cutting across the grassy plains, down to the silver strip of the flowing river. The sun is high in the sky by then, and their horse’s sides sweating and shaking. They dismount at the banks, and Arthur leads the horse to the water, letting him drink. Gwen drinks herself and then splashes some of the water onto her face, getting off the worst of the dirt.

A shadow falls over her. She looks up into the prince’s tense face.

“Where in the hells are we going?” Arthur asks her tightly.

The horse needs rest. They need to talk. A scant break would be more helpful than harmful, even if it lessens the lead they have on Morgause’s soldiers. She pats the ground next to her, and after a moment of hesitation, he settles down in a heap, his shoulders hunched. There are little tufts of grass growing in the sandy ground, which he rips out and starts picking apart with his nails. 

“We have two options,” Gwen tells him. “The first is to do what Sefa said—go to the lake of Avalon. Get the sword from the lake and destroy the cup, which will defeat Morgause’s army. The second is to move, and to keep moving.” She thinks longingly of Morgana and Merlin, in their castle by the ocean. It would be cruel to ask a kingdom of sorcerers to grant asylum to Uther's son. “Find a town and live in exile.” 

“Camelot is my kingdom,” the prince says sharply. “And my father is still in the dungeons there. I shan’t abandon my people to a woman who executes them at will.”

Gwen exhales slowly. He’s just lost his kingdom, which is the only thing he had ever known: his only right, his only duty. Now is not the time to talk about this. It might be the only time.

“What makes her so different from your father, then?” she asks.

Arthur reels back, as if Gwen had raised a sword to him. “How can you even ask that? She has no right to the throne, Gwen; she’s the daughter of a minor lord and she slaughtered the lower town on her way to the castle, she’ll lead Camelot to ruin—”

“Uther had to conquer all the land around the citadel so he and you would have your kingdom to rule,” Gwen says, her voice rising beyond her control. “No one has a right to a throne. No one has a right to obeisance. Your father built your right over a valley of bones, and we are taught to praise him for it.” She leans forward, bringing her face close to his. “And let me ask you this, Arthur—who first slaughtered the lower town?”

His eyes are wide and hapless, as though he were facing some great betrayal—an execution, or a pyre. Gwen brings her hands to his, squeezing tightly. “You don’t have to answer that right now,” she says, softening her voice. “But you know what he wanted you to do in the raids. You’ve seen him burn people, Arthur. We live in a kingdom that bleeds.”

“He was wrong,” Arthur admits unsteadily. He turns his face away. “But—Gwen—that was different, he was protecting his people, he did what he thought he had to do—”

He doesn’t believe that any more than she does. She can feel it in the tremors racing beneath his skin. “And she is doing what she thinks she has to do,” Gwen says instead. “No different from your father, Arthur. And no worse.” She tilts her head. “Maybe even a little better.”

Arthur rips his hands out of hers and jolts to his feet, striding away from her. His shoulders shake as he brings his hands to his eyes. She sets her hands on her knees and waits.

“If you hate my father’s rule so much, then why aren’t you back at the castle?” Arthur grates out. “Celebrating your new king.”

“Because she is still a king.” Gwen thinks of the bodies arranged on biers in the square, and the corpses left to rot in the courtyard. “My loyalty is to Camelot, Arthur. Not the throne. Not any king. She hurt them dearly as well.” She slowly gets to her feet, dusting off the sand caked onto her skirt. “And I believe in you.”

She steps towards him. He does not step away.

“I am here with you, my prince,” Gwen says. “But I will only help you defeat Morgause on one condition.” She reaches out but stops before her fingers touch his shoulder. “Swear to me you’ll free them.”

He doesn’t turn around. She keeps going regardless. “The day you take the throne, magic will live again in Camelot. There will be no more burnings. No more pyres. No more drownings. All your people will be free, no matter how they are born, no matter how they choose to live. Swear to me, Arthur.”

Arthur turns to her then. His face is salt-wet, tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks. “Maybe they were right to leave,” he says abruptly. He tilts his head to the sun, a sound between a laugh and a cry escaping his lips. “I listened to the girl—I listened to Sefa describing Merlin and Morgana, and I couldn’t even recognise them. He was laundering my gods-damned socks and picking up the things I threw at him, when he had the power to change the seasons and crack the earth in twain. A god, Gwen. I was with a god, and he was too afraid to show it. Nothing I do will make that right. And Morgana—all she ever wanted was to make things right. She begged to be in councils so much that Father threatened to lock her in her rooms for it when she was younger, and now—”

He rakes his hands through his hair. “They—they’re so happy,” he spits out at last, with an aimless, reckless hunger. “With their magic, in their kingdom by the sea. And we—we are so—”

He breaks off, burying his head in his hands. Gwen hugs him close. They are wrong. Gods above, they are so wrong. 

“I swear,” he mumbles against her ear. “By my crown, by my blood, by my life. By the gods we worship. I swear to you, Guinevere of Camelot, that I will free our people.” His voice cracks. “I will do right by you. And Mother damn me if I break my oath.”

\-----

_"Do you think—we'll really have to run?" Morgana asks aloud._

_She looks up at Gwen with too-bright eyes, and Gwen sets a hand on her shoulder, cradling the side of her neck and jaw. Morgana's skin is warm against her chilled fingers. "I hope not," she says softly._

_Morgana covers Gwen's hand with hers. "But what do you think?"_

_"I—" Gwen stumbles on her words. "I can't say. I don't know."_

_The brightness in Morgana's eyes spills over onto her cheeks, and Gwen holds her close, pressing her face to the top of Morgana's head and letting her hide her face as she weeps. "I've already lost one home," Morgana says. "I hated it while I was there, and wanted nothing more than to be rid of it all—but it was still my home, Gwen. And now—I can feel the walls closing in, and it's like they have teeth and eyes, and there are days when I can't breathe in this castle. So why—"_

_She breaks off, burrowing further into Gwen's kirtle. "Why does the thought of it hurt so much?"_

_Gwen strokes her hair with gentle fingers and says the words they are both thinking. "Because it is your home."_

_"Is it?" Morgana laughs suddenly, the sound muffled by Gwen's stays. "What kind of home tries to kill you, Gwen? What kind of home makes you live in fear?"_

_The only home Gwen has ever known. She can’t answer aloud, not in time to make her reply worth something. After her tears have slowed, Morgana pulls away from Gwen, wiping haphazardly at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. "I know it won't happen," she declares with a hint of her usual assertion. "I know it won't. But if it does—if—"_

_She lowers her hands to look at Gwen and tremulously smiles. "Come with me, Gwen."_

_Gwen stills. “I can’t,” she says. “Morgana, this is your escape—”_

_“And it can be yours, too.” Morgana reaches up and cups Gwen’s face in her hands. “Camelot has given you nothing. It killed your father. It keeps you downtrodden. Come with me. I will make you a high lady, as you deserve.”_

_Gwen bends down and kisses her on her salt-wet lips. There is nothing else she can do—this is her lady, who hasn’t even stepped foot in Cornwall, but is already planning to remake it in her image. By Brigit and the gods, does she love her lady so. But Gwen cannot assent._

_“I can’t,” she says. "And you can’t wait for me, either. This is supposed to be your escape. If you ever have to run, you can't wait for me."_

_Morgana surges up to her feet, crowding their faces close. "But I'm not leaving you behind. I swear to you. I won't leave you here alone.” The tear-tracks on her cheeks shine in the light reaching between them, and her hands are soft and gentle on Gwen’s face. "And you need to leave this town, Gwen, it’s killing you every gods-damned day you spend in its walls—"_

_"I'm not going to leave," Gwen repeats, shaking her head. She curls her hands around Morgana’s wrists, holding her close. "I can't leave, Morgana, you have to understand that—"_

_"No, I don't,” Morgana bursts out. “I don't understand why you don’t want to flee all this. Your father is dead. Your brother is gone. Camelot has given you nothing but pain and hurt, and—and—to hell with this city, and to hell with everyone here, you deserve so much more than that—"_

_"I can't," Gwen says desperately._

_It is loud enough to ring around their chambers and make them both still in shock. Gwen feels her eyes start prickling too. “I love you, Morgana,” she says in a thick voice. “Gods above, I love you, I love you so much that I think it’ll leave me hollow. But—I can’t go with you if you run. I won’t.”_

_Morgana’s eyes are light-shot and already grieving. "Why?" she asks. "Why—won’t you?"_

_"Because it’s my home too."_

_She doesn't say anything more. That is the only truth she can offer—Camelot is her home, no matter how lowly she is beneath the gaze of its gleaming walls, no matter how much it has inflicted on her. Camelot's people are her people, to laugh with at supper, to hold close, to protect to the limits of her heart and hands. She is no lady; no throne is owed to her by blood or might, but she too has a right to call this kingdom her own. To choose it, to cling to it, to fight for it, above any woman or man._

_"Because—I don't want to," she adds softly._

_Gwen buries her face in Morgana’s hair, and the two of them weep together. After that, there is nothing left to say._

\-----

The lake stretches out before them, a mirror plain of shimmering blue. Gwen and Arthur clamber off the draft horse and tie him to one of the trees at the shoreline, letting him lip contentedly at the greenery there. They approach the water on clumsy feet, skidding down the muddy banks. 

Across the waters, Avalon shines.

Gwen’s eyes can’t focus on the famed isle—they skip over it, or look away on instinct. Even on a dull day, it is like the sun to her mind. All she can perceive is the faintest impression of a tower, and fields of misty green. The space between the worlds is thin on the shores of Avalon. It’s why they send the most precious of their dead into the lake, setting their bodies adrift in flaming ships and praying that they will reach the land of the blessed on the other side. Once, when she and her brother were young enough to be defiant of the world, they went diving to see if they could find the bones at the bottom of the lake. There was nothing there. 

Arthur squints out at the water. “Do we—swim to get it?” he asks slowly.

Gwen snorts. She kneels down and dips her fingers into the lake. The water is limpid, still to her eye, but against her skin it seems to pulse like a heartbeat. Hearts and hands and a desirous mind. That is all it takes to make magic.

“Give me your palm,” she says to Arthur. 

When she unrolls her handkerchief, the fabric stiff from dried blood the color of rust in the night. Gwen selects a shard of the vial and cuts his proffered palm, and then her own. Their mingled blood drips into the water. She plunges the piece of glass into the water as well, letting the little ripples wash Merlin’s blood away. The lake’s heartbeat grows louder in her ears.

Arthur glances at her, eyebrows furrowed. She smiles a little. “What else can it be?” she asks.

They close their eyes and pray.

When Gwen looks up, a fog has rolled over the lake. It is thick as wool and billowing, tendrils racing over water towards the shoreline, cloaking the whole of the lake’s expanse in a thousand shadowed shades of gray and green. The mists are high enough to block out the afternoon sun, and Gwen shivers as she stands up in the sudden dark. They part as they reach the shore, giving way to a roiling darkness. There emerges a figure from the gloomy shadows, rising from the lake—black-haired and pale-skinned, clad in sodden white. A golden sword gleams in her hand, etched with runes Gwen cannot read.

The wraith lifts her head. Gwen’s knees give out, and Arthur has to catch her before she falls.

“Freya,” Gwen whispers.

The girl—girl no longer, with the lambent green crackling beneath her skin—looks at her with eyes of deep black, filled with fathoms upon fathoms of water where sunlight cannot reach. Two years ago, she came to Camelot fleeing from a deathly fate, and Camelot consumed her as it had so many others. She looks no older, and also as if centuries had burrowed into her skin.

“What calls you here?” Freya asks. Her voice is hollow like a ship’s nave, and it fills the mists with a shuddering sibilance.

Gwen cannot summon any words under the weight of Freya’s gaze. Arthur is the one to answer her. “Camelot is under siege, my lady,” he says, his voice unsteady. He doesn’t seem to recognize her. “Our castle has fallen. We have come for your aid. We need a weapon that can destroy a grail of everlasting life.”

Freya turns her gaze to Arthur, and Gwen feels him quail at her back. “I do not care about Camelot. Who are you to wield such a weapon, Uther’s son?” 

Arthur is silent. The question rings in Gwen’s ears. 

“We are no one,” she says abruptly.

Gwen straightens her back. She takes one step towards the water, and then another, until she is in up to her ankles, soaking her boots through. “In the face of all the grief Camelot has inflicted,” she says, “in the face of the blood and ash on which we have built our castles—we are no one. We are nothing before you and all our dead, and nothing we do will fully atone for what our kingdom has committed. Nothing we do will bring you back, and I am sorry, Freya.” Her voice breaks. “I am sorry we could not save you in your last life.”

There are corners of Camelot where the sun cannot bear to shine, groves which whisper when there is no wind and castle corridors which always taste of copper and cold. Freya is not the first ghost Gwen has seen, nor will she be the last. But standing in front of her now, Gwen can say what she has always wanted to say as she listened to the castle groaning around her.

“But we still have to try.”

She reaches out a hand, palm outstretched. “That is all any of us can do,” she says. “Try—believe and hope and try for a future that is better than the present and better than the past. We are nothing, but it is still in our hands to try. We can. We must. That is what we owe the world.”

There is a moment of silence, and then Freya smiles. It is beautiful and terrible, with the emptiness of the drowning deep, but it creases the corners of her eyes, and for the moment of her smile, Gwen sees the girl she had been.

“Guinevere of Camelot,” she announces with a tilt of her head. 

Gwen bows her head. “Aye.”

“Thomas’ daughter. Elyan’s sister. The Priestess’ lover.” Freya pauses. Her face becomes no more human, but it still softens, like the edges of a song hummed under the water. “Merlin’s friend.”

Gwen smiles a little at the thought of them. If she needs to be defined by anything in the world, she would have it be by those she loves. “Aye,” she says again. “I am.”

Freya raises the blade in her hand, water streaming down the blade. “Merlin—he was the one who gave me custody of this blade. He said it will never falter in front of its foe. Excalibur, he called it. The king’s sword.” She offers the hilt to Gwen. “I give it now to you.”

Gwen reaches for the proffered blade. She steels herself for the touch of a drowned woman. The brush of Freya’s fingers—lively, warm with skin-heat—shocks through her. She nearly drops Excalibur back into the water.

“You’re alive,” she breathes.

“I am.” Freya steadies the blade. “I died on that shore, where you now stand. But I live beyond that.” She wraps Gwen’s fingers securely around the hilt of the sword. “Who is to say that ghosts are not alive, my lady?”

Between one breath and another, the mist takes her away. 

\-----

_"Don't move, my lady."_

_Gwen freezes. There is a hand on her shoulder and a faint pressure against the small of her back, like a fingernail against her skin. She cranes her head back and sees a hand curled around a knife handle, and every nerve in her body goes cold._

_Leah's voice is soft, and she is close enough that Gwen can feel her breath against her ear. "I'll remind you that I'm an apothecary," she murmurs. "A poisoned knife is child's play for me. So I think it's in your best interest to do what I say."_

_Gwen's eyes dart around, searching for something—anything—she can use in her favor. Her knife is at her waist, but her hands are occupied with a jug of mulled wine and two goblets, and the blade pressed against her back is far closer to her skin than she would like it. They are in one of the narrow servants' corridors, dimly lit with torches in plain sconces. The closest guard is at least two halls away, stationed at the entryway to the east wing of the castle. He likely won't hear her if she shouts. He might not even care._

_And if he does care—it'll be the pyre for Leah, and a nameless grave._

_"Whatever it is you want to do, Leah," Gwen says in her softest, most level tone, "I do not think this is the answer."_

_"It's the only one I have left, my lady." The title falls from her lips like broken glass. "Don't make me hurt you."_

_"I'm sorry," Gwen offers._

_"So you've said." The hand on her shoulder digs in a little harder. "Now move."_

_Gwen takes one step, then another, her legs stiff and clumsy. Her pulse is racing in the base of her throat, hard enough to taste of panic. "Where do you want to go?" she manages to ask._

_"The prince's chambers." Leah matches Gwen's place easily, keeping the knife against her skin. "Just act the maid, if we run into anyone. You're good at that. Make something up."_

_They step into the main hall, with its grand stone arches and brass sconces. There are guards stationed at every turn, and none of the armored men so much as deign to look at them as they pass. Gwen can't decide if she should thank them or curse them for that._

_"Gwen!" a voice calls from behind them._

_Gwen nearly does curse as she turns. Leah turns with her. "My lady," Gwen says, dipping into a small bow. "I didn't expect you to be here."_

_Morgana's brow furrows. "This is the way to our rooms, why wouldn't I—” she breaks off, eyeing them worriedly. “Is everything alright, Gwen?"_

_"Quite, my lady," Gwen reassures her. She can't afford to involve Morgana in this. She doesn't know what she would do, if Morgana got hurt. "Leah caught me for—a spot of conversation just now. I was bringing Arthur some hot mulled wine, I heard he had caught a bit of the fever going around."_

_"Where did you hear—" Morgana must have caught the slight shake of Gwen's head, or the tightness in her shoulders and jaw, because she breaks off and nods. "Right. The fever. He'll—be relieved."_

_"You should head back to our rooms," Gwen tells her. "I'll meet you there."_

_"Are you sure?" Morgana asks._

_"Very much so." Gwen averts her gaze. "Please, my lady. It’s just servants’ business."_

_Servants’ business. It’s nothing a noble should concern herself with, or at least they’ve been raised to think so since they were old enough to learn their letters. It seems to work on Morgana as well, because she nods abruptly. “Very well,” she says._

_Her lady heads towards the stairs. "Leah," she calls back. "How's your daughter?"_

_"She's well." Leah's voice cracks. "Doing right as rain. My lady."_

_Morgana's footsteps fade into the distance. Gwen prays to Brigit she will do as Gwen had asked. They come to the tapestry covering the servants' entrance to the prince's chambers, and Gwen gestures at his guards with her wine pitcher. One of them nods at her, and she pulls the hanging aside and slips through, with Leah close behind her._

_Once inside, Leah steps back. Gwen lunges away from the knife and whirls around, facing the other woman for the first time._

_"Don't do this," Gwen says. Her voice shakes from the strain of keeping it low, to avoid drawing the attention of the guards. "Please, Leah. You won't get out alive. If you raise a hand to him, they'll cut you down where you stand. Don't do this to yourself—don't do this to Sefa—"_

_“Don't you dare bring up her name," Leah snarls._

_Gwen watches the apothecary's hand carefully as it trembles around the hilt of her knife. The blade catches more light than it should, gleaming iridescent like an oil spill. "You had no right to order me from the room," Leah says hoarsely. "She's my daughter, my lady, and she was hurting, and you had no right to keep me from her—"_

_"I was protecting you. And her."_

_"You should have let me die for her," Leah says—begs, as though it hadn't happened yet, and she can somehow change the past. "She doesn’t even have magic. She—she’s a child, Gwen, with all her years ahead of her, and she’ll never sleep a night through again."_

_"You would have died with her, not for her.” Gwen keeps her voice level. “But I know, Leah. It is a wretched, sorry thing. And I grieve with you.”_

_"It wasn't your fault," Leah grits out. "But I blame you. By the gods, my lady, do I blame you."_

_Gwen whispers, "I blame myself as well."_

_“Then we are in agreement.” Leah’s eyes are glittering and pained. “Go sit in the chair, my lady. Where the prince will see. Please don’t make me hurt you.”_

_Gwen sets the wine and goblets on Arthur's desk. She takes one step back, and then another, retreating to the seat at the window, in full view of the door. The cushions half-covered by a woven throw. Not even Merlin's best efforts can tidy Arthur's chambers of his clutter. "This is not the way," she says steadily. "This won't erase the pain from her mind. It won't restore her sleepless nights. Mother above, Leah, it'll make the king hate sorcery even more—"_

_"This is the only way," Leah half-shouts. Her breathing is ragged, and there are tears slipping from her eyes, trickling down to her chin. "Your king doesn't listen to any other tongue; the only language he speaks is blood on iron, and I will give it to him. I will give it all." She laughs abruptly. "I should have found a way before. She is my daughter, I should have found a way to save her, but I failed her worse than you failed her, my lady, and the least I can do—is to make him hurt."_

_She comes up close to Gwen, her grip around her knife tight enough to make her hand tremble. "I heard her thank you for saving me. Do you know how wretched that makes me? That my daughter had to think about saving me when she was the one being maimed? And you did, Gwen. You saved me, because that's what you do.” Leah's smile is the opposite of happy. “You are good. So bedamned good. You do whatever you think will make things right. It makes you cruel sometimes, my lady.”_

_Gwen's throat clicks as she swallows. “I have never once intended to be cruel, but I know that counts for little. And I don't deserve that title from you, Leah. Not now."_

_“Horseshit.” Leah’s voice is the steadiest it has been since she met Gwen in the hallway, and the angriest. “You are a high lady, my Lady Gwen. You've never been more of one, hypocrisy and all. You say you oppose His Majesty’s rule in one breath and serve him wine in the next, and you let his lapdog take a knife to my daughter in the name of saving me. If you truly believed your own words, you would’ve slipped him aconite and sent him to the Mother’s embrace long ago, before any of this even happened.”_

_“I couldn't have,” Gwen says. “I would've brought the guards down on my head. I’m only a servant, Leah. Common folk, just like you. Last to be noticed, first to be blamed, you know this.”_

_“Only a servant.” Leah scoffs, pressing the knife a little closer. Out in the open, the blade radiates an icy chill, cutting against Gwen’s skin before the metal even touches her. Leah reaches out and tugs at the ring of keys dangling from Gwen’s belt, not enough to rip it away, but enough so they both feel it. “You’ve been acting as the Lady Morgana’s confidante since you were still a girl. You're her sworn chamberlain, with her seal and her bed. Some mere servant you are.”_

_“I am still a servant.” Gwen meets Leah’s gaze. “I spent my first five years in this castle fearing the whip. I still fear it to this day.”_

_Leah laughs again, a broken, twisted sound. Her eyes screw shut as she throws her head back, and Gwen inches her hand underneath the woven throw, feeling for the handle of a blade. Arthur hasn't yet learned to take care of his things._

_“You fear?” Leah echoes once her laughter has subsided. “Aye. I believe that you do. And I fear the pyre for myself and my daughter. Every day.”_

_Gwen never once takes her eyes from Leah. Her fingers bump against something metal—Arthur’s dulled sword is still where it is beneath the throw. “I know,” she whispers. “But I am not your enemy. We all—we just want to live, Leah. That’s all any of us want to do. Live.”_

_Her hand closes around the hilt, and she is midway through yanking the sword from under the blanket and swinging it at Leah’s arm when the door clatters open, revealing Morgana at the threshold, with Merlin behind her—her lady, hers, who’s watched her wrap her hands in linen after an afternoon spent scrubbing with lye, who’s laid with her in bed and listened to her dream idly of a world where everyone sleeps with a warm belly in winter, who’s spent too long with Gwen to think herself above servants’ business. It makes Gwen’s stomach drop. Morgana’s gaze goes first to Gwen and then to the shining-edged knife pointed at her throat, and her lips twist in a snarl._

_“Get away from her!” Morgana screams. Her eyes flood with gold._

_That is what Arthur’s guards see when they barge into the chamber—flame alighting like a bird from Morgana’s hand in Leah’s direction, her eyes bright and metal-sheened, her mouth twisted in fury. Leah’s face is slack with shock, her knife long fallen from her limp fingers, and Gwen is swaying, the babbling fear she had held at bay so well before welling up her throat at the sight of the armored knights. Damn them. Damn them all. They pay no heed to the castle’s servants. They never bother to look at her face. But they are trained to heed the cries of nobility in distress and work under Uther’s command—_

_—Gwen can see the moment the men overcome their shock, when Morgana shifts in their minds from a royal ward to a sorceress, from a lady to be protected to a villain to be caught and slain. She watches helplessly as their hands go for their swords, their faces hardening. Merlin is still for a split second before he suddenly moves, thrusting his hand up into the air and shouting words which rattle the stone walls, and the guards stagger back from the lightning which suddenly crackles through the air around them. One of them shouts for aid._

_Another set of clanking footsteps from outside the hall. Arthur barrels in, sword drawn. The blade clatters against the paving stones as he stumbles and stills at the sight before him—Morgana and Merlin, power swirling around their hands and faces. His own knights, with their weapons trained on his sister and his friend, as hunters around a wounded boar._

_He works his jaw for long moments before he can manage to speak. “Morgana?” he asks thinly. His voice breaks in the middle of her name. “You—Merlin?”_

_They do not answer him. But his entry makes the two of them falter, long enough for the guards to overwhelm them. Merlin is forced to his knees first, a cold iron blade pressed to the tender skin beneath his jaw. It takes three guards to push Morgana to the floor and force her arms behind her. She struggles to escape, throwing herself bodily at Gwen, her eyes like flame. The carmine charm glints at her neck, useless._

_“They’re sorcerers, my lord,” one of the guards announces to Arthur._

_Arthur doesn’t answer. He has not yet moved, limb-locked and panicked. No one speaks in the silence that follows. Gwen’s ears are buzzing from the force of her heartbeat. She is so afraid that she feels faint and sick from it, like the room is starting to move around her. She can’t watch them die. She doesn’t know how she can. She doesn’t know anything right now—how she can save them, what she can say, what she can do. She isn’t a knight or a sorceress. She has no power outside of her voice and the paltry strength of her own hands; all she’s ever done is serve wine and pump bellows and do card tricks—_

_The most important part of the act is the distraction. That’s the first thing her father taught her about sleight of hand._

_Gwen screams._

_She screams long and pained, as loud as she can, and all the heads in the room turn to look at her. Slowly, as if compelled—as if fighting compulsion—Gwen draws the sword out from under the blankets. It’s a short blade, leftover from Arthur’s training days. The edge is dull, which is all the better for her._

_“Help,” she croaks as she brings the sword up into the air. Her hand jerks like a puppet’s as she turns the point towards her own belly. “She’s making me—help me—”_

_Arthur runs to her and tries to rip the sword from her hand, but Gwen doesn’t let him. Morgana’s face is contorted now—from fear or anger or simple desperation, Gwen doesn’t know, but she is looking at Gwen all the same, and Gwen looks back at her, praying to all the gods who made the earth that she will understand._

_“You have to let them go,” Gwen begs. Her knuckles are ashen around the sword’s hilt. “She’s—she’s going to kill me if you don’t let her go, you have to—”_

_Gwen doesn’t have the right leverage to stab herself effectively, but it hurts nonetheless, to force a blade against her stomach. She drives the tip of the blade through all the layers of her shawl and coat and kirtle and stays and chemise and undershift, into the softness of her belly. Another sound escapes her throat, a high whine of pain. It is not wholly feigned._

_Arthur whirls around to face his own guards. “Let them go,” he commands, his voice high from shock. “Let them go, right now—”_

_The guards hesitate. “My lord—”_

_Gwen twists the blade and gasps._

_“Now!” Arthur barks._

_The moment the guard’s gauntlets leave her wrists, Morgana grabs Merlin’s shoulder with one hand and crushes the locket at her throat with the other. The smell of blood fills the room, and the two of them vanish. The last sight Gwen has of her is her frantic eyes._

_The guards shout, scrambling to track where she might have gone. Gwen lets the sword clatter from her fingers. She can let her body do as it might, now, and between her fear and her effort and her pain, all her joints fold, as if cut. She collapses to her knees, keeling over with a moan. Arthur kneels down next to her, gathering her up in his arms._

_"Gods, Gwen—" he chokes out._

_Gwen forces her arms up and around him. She peers over Arthur's shoulder and sees Leah hovering aimlessly above her. Her poisoned knife is on the ground. So long as she doesn't pick it up again, she'll be safe._

_“You saved me,” Gwen pants, fumbling for Leah’s hand. She makes her words loud enough for even the guards to hear. “You—Leah—you saved me—”_

_Leah’s face is drawn and bloodless. Guilty. “No—Mother above, my lady, you don’t have to—”_

_Gwen tugs on her hand, forcing her to meet her eyes. “You saved me,” she pronounces carefully. “You did, Leah. You saved me.”_


	5. Midwinter Day

They tie the horse in the woods next to the common stables when they come back into town, trusting that a stablehand will find the animal in the morning. Arthur shivers in the late evening chill, having shed his outer tunic to wrap Excalibur’s blade in place of a scabbard. Gwen is hungry enough to seriously contemplate eating her boots.

“The guards in the castle would be changing shifts now,” Arthur says, shaking himself a little. “It's as good a time as any to sneak in—”

Gwen shakes her head, starting to tug him towards the town instead. “We need to rest and eat,” she says. “And I am not storming a castle alone.”

Morgause has guards stationed in the main entrance to the lower town. Gwen musses her hair up even more and slings her arm around Arthur, trapping the bundle of the sword between them to seem nothing more than a disheveled tunic he didn’t have time to put on. She raises her voice as they approach the guards to complain about laundry duty and her schedule and when can she see him again, she can probably sneak out in the next two days, she isn’t sure she can wait to see him again—

The soldiers wave the pair of them through. Castle invasion or no, the maids and pages will still sneak out of the citadel for their dalliances. Not even a war will stop the rhythms of everyday life. 

The windows are dark in the tanner’s shop, but Gwen knocks on the door to the attached living quarters nonetheless. Her stomach sinks more and more as no one comes to answer the door, and she is about to turn back to Arthur and say that they might have to risk entering the castle through the kitchens when footsteps sound behind the door, and a voice calls, “The shop is closed, so you'll have to come back in the morn—”

Judith opens the door. Her face goes pale.

Gwen finds herself yanked alongside Arthur inside the door, which slams closed behind them. Judith collapses against it, glaring. “What the hells are you two doing here?” she whispers. “Morgause put out the order this morning for all of us to search for you and bring you in. Do you know what the bounty on your head is, Gwen? It’s high enough that I’m seriously considering it!”

Her voice is piercingly high and fast—from worry, which brims in her eyes and the tight corners of her mouth. Gwen holds out her hands. “I’m sorry to endanger you and your family, Judith,” she murmurs.

“To the seven hells with the danger,” Judith says. She suddenly launches herself at Gwen, squeezing her tight. “I—I just want to know that you’re okay,” she says, her voice muffled against Gwen’s hair. She pulls back just as quickly. “Gods above, did you roll in all the pigsties between here and Mercia? Is that your grand plan?”

“I—” It is on the tip of her tongue, to confess that she doesn’t have much of a grand plan at the present, flying as she is on a prayer to the Goddess, but her mind then catches up with what Judith had said. “Did you say that there’s a bounty on our heads?”

Judith nods, crossing her arms. “Aye. More marks than most families in town will see in a full year. They know you, so they don’t want to turn you in, but—” she eyes Arthur, who still has dirt on his face and the bundle of cloth tucked under his arm, “—they’re already sending search parties out for him.” She sighs. “I suppose you’re going to tell me I can’t turn him in?”

Gwen tilts her head, considering. A bounty means that they have to be conveyed before Morgause and their identities verified. That would save them the issue of getting through all the guards to the throne room, and if they time it right—

“Actually—come to think of it,” she says slowly, “you might well get your chance.” 

Arthur makes a startled noise. Gwen pats his shoulder reassuringly. “But first,” she says, turning to Judith, “can I impose on you for a bit of dinner, my lady? And a warm drink? We’ve had—” she trails off and laughs, a little sheepishly, a little in shock. “We’ve had a day.”

“Why, Gwen—” Judith’s grin is soft and fond, “I thought you’d never ask.”

\-----

It is Judith who marches them to the castle the next morning, right through the main courtyard. She’s wearing a leather vest over her good breeches, and a golden sword with a glimmering hilt is strapped to her back, catching the sun. Her sharpness is a marked contrast to Gwen and Arthur, who are even more bedraggled than they were last night. The prince looks like he was dragged kicking and screaming through a wild bramble. Gwen’s skirts, which once hung perfectly starched, are torn and rumpled, hanging crookedly at her hips. Both their hands are tied behind their backs, and everyone they walk past stop and stare shamelessly. Arthur’s cheeks are flushed red by the time they reach the gates.

“I’ve caught the fugitive prince and maid for the queen,” Judith announces to one of the soldiers standing guard. 

The woman’s eyes are suspicious until Judith snaps her fingers, and the ropes binding both their wrists shimmer with gold. Her face clears then. “Good on you,” she says approvingly. “The lady might even offer you a drink at this rate.”

Judith hums, sounding intrigued. “Can I see her, then?” She jerks Arthur a little closer to her, tightening the bands at his wrist. “I don’t want to lose the bounty to anyone else.”

“What?” the guard asks archly. “You don’t trust me?”

“It depends,” Judith says. “On what your pay is.”

The two of them laugh, and Gwen studies the flagstones beneath her feet, making herself as still as she can be.

They are waved through into the castle and pointed in the direction of the throne room, where the new queen is holding her audience. The doors are already opened, letting them walk right into the heart of the castle. Morgause is seated on her throne, her grail beside her, with Sefa at her side, holding a pitcher of wine. All around them, maids are bustling about, taking down the old Pendragon tapestries. They are hangings heavy enough to trip an armored knight; it takes two maids a piece to take down the counterweights in the right order. Gwen’s eyes dart around the room, counting their number. Vera. Alis. Janet. Annie. All the maids she scrubbed floors with, and ate dinner with, and held when they cried, and laughed with next to the kitchen hearths. Judith had told Imogen last night, and Imogen was to tell Vera this morning, and Vera would pass the word along to all who cared to listen. Her chest feels fit to burst now, looking at them all.

Her girls. They all came for her.

Judith stops before Morgause’s throne, keeping one of her hands clamped on Gwen’s shoulder and the other on Arthur’s. “I’ve found the traitors, my lady,” she announces.

“Excellent work.” Gwen keeps her eyes trained on Morgause’s feet, but she can still hear the grin in the woman’s voice. “I was wondering if there was anyone competent in this citadel.”

“You flatter me,” Judith says dryly.

Morgause rises from the throne and descends from the dais, stopping in front of Arthur. “What exactly is it that you thought you could do, little prince?” she asks, her words dangerously light. “Rally your people? Find an army?”

Arthur clenches his jaw and says nothing. His knees hit the stone with a heavy thudding as Morgause shoves him down. 

“You. Swordswoman.” Morgause beckons. “What is your name?”

“Judith, my lady.”

“I have great need of people like you, Judith.” Morgause studies the top of Arthur’s blond head. “And I’ll pay you enough to make this bounty seem like a pittance. You only need to prove yourself to me.”

Gwen isn’t looking Judith’s way, but she can imagine her grimace easily. “Isn’t bringing them in enough?” she asks.

Morgause laughs a little at that. “Nearly.” Her voice sharpens to a knife’s edge. “Kill him.”

Two short words, enough to make every hand in the hall still for a beat. Judith takes a short step towards Morgause, bringing her closer to the prince. “What?” she asks. 

“Kill him,” Morgause says simply. “He’s Uther’s son. It would be a blessing to our people.”

Judith cocks her head, as if considering the point. And then, with a great scrape of metal on metal, she draws the sword from the scabbard on her back. “Alright,” she says.

And then she releases the ropes around their wrists, dropping the sword at Arthur’s feet as she flings herself at Morgause.

She gets in two blows—a small burst of lightning, and a punch square to the nose—before Morgause recovers, raising her hand and batting her aside with a jet of flame. Gwen screams as Judith is flung away, crashing onto the floor. Before Morgause can lash at her again, Sefa rushes down the dais, dumping her pitcher over Morgause’s head, and then Arthur is lunging at her with a mighty yell, sword outstretched. Morgause wipes the wine from her eyes and unsheathes her own sword, parrying his blow. At her murmured word, her blade turns glowing-hot, like the center of a forge, and the glow spreads to Arthur’s sword, racing down to the crossguard and grip. 

“A girl from the town and two maids?” Morgause sneers. She leans closer as Arthur’s face creases from the pain of holding on to his sword. “Is that the best you can do?”

Sefa throws her pitcher on the ground hard enough for it to shatter and scrabbles at the pieces, pelting Morgause’s head and back with shards of pottery. Morgause’s blade falls away from Arthur’s as she whirls on Sefa with a snarl, freezing the girl mid-throw with a spell that makes her shriek. At Sefa's cry, Judith clambers to her feet and sends a whirlwind to Morgause’s legs, knocking her off balance and freeing Sefa. Morgause stumbles away and swears.

The noise draws Morgause’s soldiers, who stream through the twin doors, their swords and crossbows hefted. At that moment there is a thundering clap as all the hangings are dropped in unison, sending clouds of dust into the air, and the maids shout at each other to _hurry, hurry, pick it up_ , hoisting the tapestries up and flinging them at the guards, who stumble and wheel about in bewilderment, or unfurling the hangings into massive shields and hustling around in circles, blocking the view of the throne and throwing the room into complete disarray. Some of the girls pick up the counterweights and start throwing them into the fray, yelling at the top of their lungs.

Arthur, Judith, and Sefa have drawn Morgause behind the throne by now, beneath the grand banner in black and gold. The priestess is stronger than any of the three of them—Sefa has run out of pottery shards by now, and is only dancing on the sidelines and shouting to add to the clamor. Judith is flagging fast, the fires shooting from her hands barely more than candle flames, leaving Arthur bearing the brunt of Morgause’s attacks. He can’t last for much longer. 

He doesn’t have to.

Gwen slips her hand into the tear at the side of her kirtle and draws Excalibur out from her skirts. In three quick steps, she mounts the dais and thrusts the blade through the grail. The metal splits clean in half. Whatever garnet liquid is in the bowl splatters onto pedestal—

—and then the whole room screams.

The guards, each and every one of them, like the flesh was being scraped from their bones. Morgause, high and plaintive and pained. The air itself, shrieking and warping around itself, lashing against Gwen’s eardrums until she too is screaming, staggering against the onslaught of sound, and outside the windows, all through the courtyard and the streets of the lower town, the same heart-rending din rises from thousands of heaving mouths. The sound isn’t human. It isn’t a beast’s. It rises above them both, shaking the ground and the mountains, rocking the very foundations of the castle with its shattering force and reaching up to claw at the bowl of Brigit’s sky.

When the noise falls away to a ringing silence, Gwen pries herself to her feet. The other maids pick themselves off of the floor, holding each other tight. Morgause’s soldiers one by one open their eyes against the light, groaning. They lift their hands to their faces and stare, as if it were a sight they did not know. Metal rasps against stone as Arthur picks his sword up, pressing it against Morgause’s throat as she begins to stir. Gwen meets Judith’s eyes. A laugh worms its way up her throat, and once she starts, she can’t stop, falling to her knees and giggling amidst the ruined tapestries until her throat goes sore.

Arthur insists that Gwen be the one to free Uther from the dungeons that afternoon, so she could prove her allegiances. The ring of keys rattles in her ashen-knuckled grip as she picks her way down the dungeon steps to the only cell still occupied. The old king lifts his head to stare at her as she approaches.

“Your kingdom has been restored, sire,” she murmurs. She keeps her gaze trained on the grubby hem of his tunic.

He regards her in silence. “Aren’t you going to release me?” he asks at last.

Gwen wants to savor this moment, with the king behind bars and at her feet. She wants to laugh in his face and leave him in the dark to rot. But Arthur is waiting for his father in the throne room, to return his crown to him, and another would free him if she does not, and she has no wish to end up in a cell herself once he is freed.

Her hands shake as she forces them to twist the key in its lock. She opens the door and sweeps into a low bow.

He rises to his feet and sweeps out of the cell without a word in her direction. Gwen walks along in his wake, up the stairs and back into the bright corridors. They look the same as they did when Morgause was king. Amidst the clamor of Uther regaining control of his castle, no one thinks to ask her to return the dungeon keys.

That evening, the kitchen is short-staffed. Gwen volunteers to take Morgause her food.

The woman is in the same cell that had held Uther, sitting with her legs comfortably sprawled against the far wall. There are dark iron bracelets locked around her wrists, their edges pulsing a faint red. Still, she smiles when she sees Gwen walk in. “Come to gloat, my lady?” she asks.

“Hardly.” Gwen shoves the tray of food through the slot and watches as Morgause scoffs at the parsnips and bread.

“Don’t you have other things to be doing? It’s not the job for someone of your stature to be delivering food to me.”

“I am precisely where I want to be, my lady,” Gwen replies.

She pulls a hairpin from her braid and tosses it through the bars of the cell. It clatters on the floor in front of Morgause’s feet. “Your soldiers will all be spared,” she says conversationally. “The screams when your cup was destroyed could be heard even from down here, and the prince spoke for them as well. Uther forgave them all as possessed. They have a day to leave the citadel before he starts bringing them to the pyre.”

“The man’s getting soft in his old age,” Morgause muses. She glares as Gwen tosses another hairpin through the bars. “What in the hells are you doing?”

“I should think that would be obvious.” Gwen unlocks the cell door. “The main door will still be locked,” she says, tucking the ring of keys back into her pocket. “But you can take care of that on your own, once you get the cold iron off of you.”

Morgause goes still. She is silent for a moment, and then two, and then she starts laughing so hard that her shoulders shake. “Gods above, my lady,” she gasps, chest heaving. “I thought they had to be lying. Are you really, truly so kind as this?”

“Don’t take this for kindness. I will not see another sorcerer executed in Camelot.” Gwen’s lips quirk. “Not even if it’s you.”

Morgause’s laughter follows her all the way up the stairs.

\-----

_The apothecary’s door opens. “What?” Leah growls. “It’s the gods-damn ghosts’ hour—”_

_The light of the candle in her hand reflects off Gwen’s face, and her scowl falls away, leaving her face a mask. “My lady,” she says._

_The last time Gwen saw Leah was the night after Morgana fled. Gwen was lying in the wreckage of Morgana’s room, in the bed where they had slept and laughed and wept and spent late nights and early mornings learning how they fit against each other. Her eyes felt like she took a handful of sand to them and scrubbed. Brigit above, all she had wanted was to cry again. She was wishing there was something left to cry. Leah found her there and set a jar of ointment on the bedside table._ So bedamned good _, she’d whispered in a fury._ You had to go and make me a hero.

_But being a hero wasn’t enough for Uther. The revelation that his beloved child had magic whipped him into a fury, and in the fortnight since her disappearance, a pyre burned what seemed to be every other day. Gwen lies in bed each night and listens to the screaming echo in the castle corridors, of women and men and children, all the people they could not save. Leah and Sefa had already escaped his law twice. He wasn’t going to give them the boon of a trial this time._

_“He’s coming tomorrow.” Gwen’s voice breaks. “In the morning. I heard it in council today.”_

_The blankness on Leah’s face cracks, showing a sliver of fear—and a well of resignation, enough to drown in, which made Gwen’s chest constrict even more. “Thank you for the warning, my lady,” she says in a clipped voice. “I’ll be sure to give the guards a—warm welcome.”_

_“No, Leah—” Gwen thrusts a small leather pouch towards the apothecary. It’s all the marks she had saved in her year working as Morgana’s chamberlain. “Take this. I have a horse waiting for you at the edge of town. You and Sefa need to go. There are Druids west of Camelot, in Cornwall. Ride for them.”_

_It’s her horse. Morgana had given her the mare years ago, along with a bridle and saddle embellished with bright violets. There was too much going on in the castle for them to remember that the sorceress had given Gwen a mount, but once they do remember, she’ll be taken away and shot. The mare’s always been too good for Gwen, anyways. Let them think that someone had stolen her in the middle of the night, or that she had been a sorcerous beast who walked away of her own accord._

_“I can’t take this,” Leah says at last._

_“You must. Please, Leah—”_

_"Do you know how much I’ll owe you? I already owe you my life in addition to my daughter's now, and those are the two things I cherish the most on this earth. And now I’ll owe you those things twice over. Do you understand that, my lady?" Leah’s words are steeped in anger. "I will owe you to the end of my days. You've caught me in a debt I will never be able to repay."_

_Gwen shakes her head. “It is no debt,” she says firmly. “I will collect no debt from you. You owe me nothing.”_

_The only thing they owe to each other is what they owe to the world—to try to bring light, even when the ash falls thick and the nights are dark and starless. Gwen curls Leah’s fingers around the pouch of marks._

_“Go. Live, Leah,” Gwen begs. “Let Sefa live.”_

_Leah stares at her, then at the money in her hands. She abruptly dashes away, running up the stairs. The door slams shut in her wake. Gwen pulls her hood low over her head and walks back through the empty streets. Above her head, the castle waits with sunken eyes._

\-----

Arthur knocks on the door of Gwen’s room. She looks up from where she’s sitting on her bed, shuffling her cards back and forth. The circlet of crown prince is still on his head, and his tunic is a fine velvet one, the sort he only wears to council. He holds up a pitcher and two goblets.

“Do you have time?” he asks.

She smiles. “It depends, my lord. How good’s the wine?”

“Very, I was assured.”

“Then I think I can scrounge up some time.” 

He hesitates, feet clinging to the floor for a moment, before he sits down on the bed next to her. The pallet is too low for his height, so his knees bunch up in front of him, as if he were a gangly boy again. He’s too bright for her worn blanket and bedsheets, the crown on his head too shining to be here, in a little coffin of a windowless room. It’s been a sennight, and his eyes haven’t lost the shadow she saw in them at the river.

The wine he pours into the cups is hot, fragrant with pepper and clove. Gwen takes the cup and inhales the steam, letting the spices clear her head.

“You were playing cards with Judith today?” he asks suddenly.

“Aye.” Gwen takes another sip of the wine. It’s good, the stuff Hilda keeps on the pot by the main hearth. 

“How is she?”

Gwen grins into her cup at the discomfort in his voice. “She’s a hero to the town, sire.” She pauses. “Not because she saved your father, but because she turned on Morgause and somehow still got the ransom for turning us in.”

“Oh.” Arthur laughs, sounding a little strained. He’d been the one to give Judith the marks for the ransom, before Uther could turn his attention to the treasury. “I’m—glad.”

He sees that her cup is half-empty and refills it.

They talk of little things as they split the pitcher between them—card games, the knights’ training, the way the forest looks from behind the castle’s glassy windows, a bounty of red and gold. The wine warms Gwen’s stomach and throat through, and she finds herself maudlin in the way only spirits can make her. The last time she had gotten drunk was last Midwinter, with Morgana at her side. Morgana—she misses Morgana. She misses the taste of her mouth, and the smell of her hair, and how they would dance and laugh together without care. The last time they danced together was Midwinter. That was the last day they were happy.

Not happy, though. Happy is the wrong word for it. Gwen still found herself struck with mourning for her father, who had only left a year past. Morgana dreamt of death every day, to where it crept into her waking hours. People still fell in the square, by fire and iron. Had they ever been happy? They grew up in the belly of the beast and played in its innards when they were young, and as they grew, their ribs bent out of shape to fit the walls around them, until they too were as broken as their home. Do they even know what it is, to breathe fresh air?

Gwen takes a sudden heaving breath, her eyes stinging. Air rushes in through her mouth and her nostrils. She’s trying. She’s trying to learn anew.

The hour grows late. The stub of Gwen’s candle burns out, spluttering in its puddle of wax, and she lights a new one. Arthur has slid down from her pallet by then and sits instead on her floor, arms akimbo, face flushed and miserable. It takes until they reach the bitter dregs for him to start talking.

“Father is furious.”

Gwen is soused enough to grin at that. “Of course he is, sire.”

“The way he was in council—no one said anything, but we all knew it.” Arthur says, raking his hands over his face. “They all left him, Gwen. All his knights, and all his councillors, they bent knee to Morgause the moment they saw what happened to the lords who didn’t. The people in the town didn’t mourn him. His own court didn’t mourn him. And when he was saved—it wasn't even for him.” The grin falls off of Gwen's face as Arthur's voice breaks. "It was for you."

He falls quiet, shaking his head. “I think—I think he would kill them all,” he mutters, tongue stumbling over the words. He curls in on himself, hiding his face in his knees. “If he had men left to replace them, he would burn them all without a second thought. If he had people enough to fill the lower town once again, he would strike everyone in the streets, where they stand. But he doesn’t, because he knows he has nothing. And so he just—he just stares at us. From his throne. And I—I wanted to believe, Gwen.” The past tense strikes her just as much as the broken timbre of his voice. “I wanted to believe that this would change him. I wanted to think—gods, so, so badly—that he was a better man.”

Light hurts, when all they are used to is the shadows. Breathing hurts, when all they are used to is a crushing weight on their lungs.

“Do you know how my mother died?” he asks her without lifting his head.

“The whole town does, sire,” she replies. “The whole kingdom knows.” Or at least—they know a story. “We wouldn’t be where we are today if she hadn’t died by magic.”

“But she didn’t.” His words are muffled against his breeches. “When Morgause first came—she showed me a vision, where Uther bartered my mother’s life in return for a son and then started the Purges because he wanted to blame anyone other than himself. And I thought that was a lie. I thought—” he trails off. “I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t want to think about it.”

“Even if Morgause did lie,” Gwen says at last, cutting the silence which had fallen between them, “would it have made a difference?”

What the hell did it matter why he killed, when he’s killed so many?

Arthur’s shoulders start shaking. Gwen reaches for him, and he shies away, hiding his tears in his crossed arms. “I never knew him,” he chokes out. “I’ve loved him every day of my life, and I never knew him. And all I have left of my mother is—is what I know from him—and now—I can’t even believe in that.”

The only thing Gwen can say to that is, “I’m sorry, Arthur.”

Her breath goes out of her in a shuddering sigh. She thinks of the way her father would talk about Amina, about her clever fingers and divine eye. How his face would shutter and then shatter at the mention of her name. How she herself would look into a mirror and trace her own cheeks and chin, and imagine if they were like her mother's. 

“I never knew my mother, either,” she whispers into the quiet. 

Arthur doesn’t respond. Gwen continues, “Her name was Amina. She died when I was little, and all I have of her are the stories my father told. I’ve sometimes thought he lied about her, because no woman could be so perfect. And she kept journals, with her whole life story in them—but even before the king took them away, I couldn’t read them.” She laughs, ruefully. “We call our language the common tongue, but to her, and my grandmother, and her mother, and all my mothers back, the words we speak are naught more than the sounds of a backwater tongue from the ends of the world." 

She inches a little closer to Arthur, and he doesn’t move away. “She is part of me,” Gwen says. “She is in my heart, in my lungs—everything I breathe and do is from her. I'll always carry her ghost, and I think I’d love her, if I knew her. But I cannot know her. And I am not her.”

This time, he lets her touch him. She rests her hand on his shoulder. “For good or ill, we are not the ones who bore us. We feel their absence, but it does not make us any less whole.”

Gwen gets to her feet then and goes down to the kitchens, stumbling a little on the stairs. The kitchen hand on duty by the embers waves at her, and she waves back, fumbling with the ladle by the pot of mulled wine. When she gets back to her room, a second full pitcher in hand, Arthur is still sitting on her floor, hunched over his knees. She silently fills his cup and her own before she settles down on the floor next to him. They drain their cups in unison.

She loses track of the hours after that. Their conversation twists and turns between his mother, and her mother, and all the people who are gone, and all the things struck down by the volleys of fate's arrows. Her second candle sputters out as well, and she doesn't bother to light another one. In her little room, the only source of illumination is the gray shape of the doorway, lit by the moonlight filtering in through the windows in Arthur’s main chambers—a refraction of a refraction of light, distorted until it is nearly nothing. At the darkest hour of the night, Arthur turns to her. She can only see a sliver of him, his ear and his hair.

“Be my queen, Gwen,” he says.

The cup clatters out of Gwen’s lax fingers, splattering the remnants of her wine dregs all over her skirts. “What?” she asks in disbelief.

He repeats the words. She blinks, staring at the blurry shape of him in shock. He can’t possibly mean that. "You know I can't, Arthur," she says thinly. 

"But you can." He is pleading. He so rarely pleads. "Please. Fathers and mothers and sons, and passing the crown along to people who can’t see past blood and old history—that’s what’s broken this kingdom. It’s gone on for long enough. We need you.”

“No.” She shakes her head. The wine is wet on her skirts. If there were light, it would be red. “Gods. No.”

“I don’t know who else could do it, Gwen—”

“—I can’t, Arthur—”

“—but there is no one better.” He is earnest. So earnest. “I don’t trust anybody else. I need a queen who can rule Camelot justly and fairly, who loves her people and knows them well. I need—you're good through and through, Gwen, and I need a good woman—" 

“I don’t want to be your queen,” she screams.

She takes him by the shoulders and shakes him, unheeding of the shock she can feel in the stiffness of his shoulders. They live in a graveyard built by the crown, and he still can’t see it. Why can’t he see it?

“Do you know what kings have done to me?” she asks. “My father would still be living if it weren’t for your father’s war. I’d still have a family. Morgana wouldn’t have had to hide herself to where it made her sick with herself, and Merlin could’ve lived without fear of losing his head every time he saved your life, and Sefa wouldn’t have endured the witchfinder’s knife, and—and Leah would still be in the town to heal the hurt, and Bella would still be alive, and Mary, and Estelle—”

And on and on, the names come to her—and even those she cannot name, who died when she was too young to know about death, but she still wants to speak of them—until her mind gives out under the flood.

“Damn justice,” she spits. Her voice is clogged with unshed tears. “Uther thought what he did was just. He thought what he did was right. It’s not your blood, Arthur. It’s the crown you claim. I don’t want a crown on my head. I won’t do it. I can’t have any more blood on my hands. All a crown does is kill and kill, and I—I can’t live with that—I won’t—”

She crumples, and he catches her on instinct.

“Don’t ask this of me,” she mumbles, clambering away from him. “Don’t. Gods damn it, Arthur. All I’ve ever wanted was to live.”

Her voice breaks asunder then, like glass chiming against a stone floor. There is nothing left to do but hide her face in her hands and sob. She startles when she feels a touch against her arm and looks up to see Arthur next to her, his hand warm and steady, grounding her until her tears run out. They sit together, shoulder to shoulder, in the deep and crushing dark. 

The morning will come. It always does. Gwen leans against him and watches the door, waiting for the light. 

\-----

The winter brings desperation for them all. Maids huddle around the hearths, leaning against each other for warmth and wrapping their bleeding fingers, cracked from lye and the cold. The castle granaries dip lower and lower, as the people from the lower town line up outside the castle once a fortnight for their family’s rations. Thieves grow more reckless. Hunters come back empty-handed. Gwen listens to the council with a pale-knuckled grip on her pitcher every day, as Uther’s fury drives him ever further. A desperate folk are dangerous, but a desperate king even more so.

She brings the king’s plans to the tavern nigh-on every day now, but it isn’t enough. It never is. The knights have taken to impromptu raids, with the king himself at their head, barging into homes and shop-stalls and dragging out whomever they see as guilty—a boy using magic to shine a saddle, a girl who spat when she thought their backs were turned, a woman who bore herself too high in the king’s presence—and the people are so drained by the cold and their hunger and the fear over their heads that most of them don’t even struggle.

Some do. Some of them try to break free and are forced to their knees and bound with iron chains. Some of them do break free and run, for breath and life, and that is when the guards release their callous arrows into the town and cut them down, without heed of whom their stray arrows hit.

And one day, an arrow flies from a guard’s bow and strikes the king in the chest.

It slips between his ribs just as he turns to order his men to give chase, lodging itself in the softness of his lungs, where he is flesh like the rest of them. Gwen is in the great hall cleaning up the tapestries when the knights carry the king back into the castle. The rich hangings are still lying on the floor, torn and crinkled from the maids’ fight: the glory of the Pendragon line, trodden into the dust. She looks on the king, a corpse on a bier, the wreckage of his house strewn about him, and feels no pity.

The guard who let the arrow fly is executed, as Uther's second-to-last royal command. His final act as king is to summon Malen back to Camelot. Gwen is there as Arthur’s attendant when the witchfinder enters. She can no more describe him now than she could at Sefa’s trial, but she still knows him. The sight of him makes bile flood her mouth. Even the witchfinder only says that _it is a stray arrow, my king—I cannot help you, when there is no sorcery afoot._ Uther begs and pleads for him to find the sorcerer who guided the arrow, but Malen does not relent. He leaves from Camelot at that, and Gwen stares after his retreating back and swears to herself that the next time she sees him, it’ll be a knife.

He isn’t a monster. He’s only a man. And men die.

That evening, Arthur asks Gwen to come to Uther’s chambers in a low, desperate voice, and Gwen follows him there only to stumble at the sight of Uther’s still form in his damask-draped bed. It is obscene, that the old king could somehow look so small and fragile. He had killed her father. He had slaughtered countless others. What gives him the right to lie there in stillness? What gives him the right to his clean hands?

Arthur turns to her, his gaze too bright for the room. “You—you know everyone in the citadel,” he says. “There has to be someone who can heal him. There has to be. Please, Gwen,” Arthur begs. “Help him.”

Gwen weighs her answer carefully. “If you ask it of me,” she finally says, “I will do it, my lord.” She lifts her head and meets Arthur’s shining eyes. Her next words are soft. “Don’t you dare ask me.”

Arthur stumbles back from what he sees on her face.

“I love him,” Arthur says at last. His voice is thick with tears. “Gods help me, but I love him.”

“I know,” she says. “And that is not wrong.”

She reaches for him, and they hold each other. 

Uther dies in his bed on Midwinter Eve. A decades-long war on magic, and no magician holds a knife to his neck. No witch carves out the heart from his chest. He dies when his lungs give out, collapsed under his own arrow, and no one mourns him.

That is a lie. There is weeping from the court. There are black banners hung all around the citadel, and the knights trade in their cloaks of Pendragon red for more subdued colors when they stand guard. Arthur spends a night kneeling in front of the bier where his father lies in repose, keeping vigil. Gwen stays the whole night in the corridor outside of the great hall, pacing back and forth. She doesn’t want him to be alone right now. 

A murky gloom fills the hallway, beyond what the torches can dispel. The wind howls between the castle’s turrets, speaking breath whistling between empty ribs. They call to her. Gwen sinks down to the floor and lets her head fall into the embrace of the rough stone, giving herself over to the babbling noise. _Mother who bore me,_ she prays, feeling their cold touch blister along her skin. _Mother whose hands I bear. Father who bore me. Father whose face I wear._ Her tears fall and freeze on her skin. _All you fallen who watched me grow, whose bones are the roads I walk on. All you who live on as we live. All you who are here now._

_Tell me we will get an ending. Tell me when._

When she next opens her eyes, it is Midwinter Day. 

The door to the great hall opens, letting a flood of illumination into the corridor. Arthur steps out, his face wan and haggard. He nods at her. She pushes herself to her feet, and they walk together back to his rooms, two of the living among the many dead.

The next day, Arthur knocks on her door, his eyes still red-rimmed, a package cradled in his hands. He presses it into her grip, with a mumbled wish for her new year to be blessed. Gwen unwraps the package and gasps. Her fingers fumble at the sight of Amina's diaries beneath the canvas, their leather covers worn to a golden sheen. She unties the twine holding one of the codices closed and pulls the cover back to reveal graceful script in manifold colors of ink. She can't read it, but she knows to the core of her—her mother’s story, her grandmother’s story, held again between her hands. 

“I haven’t forgotten what I promised you,” Arthur says. 

When she looks at him, his grief is still clear, but his jaw is set and proud as he meets her gaze. “And I will keep my word,” he declares. “I will do right by you, Gwen. I swear to it.”

\-----

_“Why’d you come out here, anyways?” Gwen asks, resting her head against Morgana’s shoulder. She’s warm and comfortably full from all the food from the Midwinter feast, and she can feel the tension of the feast seeping from her shoulders as Morgana’s hand runs up and down her spine. It is night outside, dark as pitch, and the garden is frozen beneath a layer of snow, but a soft golden glow surrounds the bench where they sit, emanating from Morgana’s clasped hands._

_Morgana shrugs under her cheek. “It was too loud.”_

_Gwen lifts her head to stare at her. “You love loudness,” she says._

_Morgana stares back at her, wide-eyed, before laughing a little ruefully. She does love feasts, and dances, and formal dinners, and all the other grand events the castle arrays before her as glittering stages on which she can perform. Her wardrobes are filled with more fine silk and satin than Gwen had ever even dreamt of touching before she entered the castle’s service, and she walks into every feast hell-bent on turning every pair of eyes in the hall towards her._

_“It was too loud,” Morgana repeats. She reaches two fingers up and taps her temple. “Up here.”_

_Gwen slumps, mouthing a silent oh of comprehension. She reaches up and rubs soothing circles on Morgana’s temples and brow. Morgana leans into her touch, her eyes fluttering shut._

_“It’s the executions,” Morgana mutters. “I kept—I kept seeing people and knowing. There were the children from the lower town who ran by the table, they’re so young, and there would be one or two who smiled at me and I looked at them and knew—they're children,” she says, almost to herself. “They're children, Gwen; anyone looking at them can see that they're just children—but Uther—”_

_Gwen holds her tighter, resting her cheek on top of her head. Morgana loves the king and despises him in the same breath, and the more she discovers of his actions towards his people, the more she is torn between the two. Gwen never had to bear this hardship. She has only ever hated him._

_“They’ll be alright,” Gwen whispers. “It’s going to be alright, my lady—”_

_“No, it’s not,” Morgana bursts out. “You know it, Gwen. It’s not.”_

_Gwen tugs her closer, and she goes easily, folding against her and hiding her face against her neck. “No,” Gwen says. “It’s not.” She presses a kiss to Morgana’s hair. “But we’re going to try to make it right.”_

_It’s all they can do. It’s what they must._

_"We should really be heading back in," Gwen murmurs._

_"I can't go back into that hall." Morgana's lips brush against Gwen’s neck. "Not with Uther right there. I—I can't stand it, Gwen, people are dying and I eat at his table and I drink his wine—"_

_"I pour wine for him," Gwen reminds her. "We do what we need to do to survive. And when we have a day to thrive—we should take it." She rises from the bench and holds out her hand. "Uther's long gone by now. And there are still many hours left to the night. Come revel with me, my lady."_

_The band is still playing when they get back to the hall, and will be playing for a long while yet. All the tables are empty, with everyone either on their feet dancing or long given to spirit-tinged slumber. The music and the dancing outlast the torches on Midwinter, reaching far enough into the morn to greet the sunrise. It is Morgana's favorite part of any feast, but she is pale and still now, her hand clammy around Gwen's._

_Gwen reaches up and guides her face over to hers. "Is it loud in here, now?"_

_Morgana shakes her head. "Not yet. But—it will be. Soon. Gods, Gwen. I need—" Her eyes have no gold in them, but they are glittering nonetheless. “I need my own head back. For tonight.” Her voice is brittle, and Gwen knows that her head is filled with the ghosts of the living. “Just—for tonight.”_

_"Of course," Gwen says decisively. It’s Midwinter, the day of hope. They can believe for tonight. Tomorrow, they will wake up and face the brokenness.“We’ll just have to make our own noise.”_

_The band starts their next song with a clash of strings, and Gwen whoops, pulling Morgana into the heart of the throng before she can do much more than yelp in startled surprise. The other dancers jostle against them as they whirl along to beat, and Gwen cups Morgana’s face between her hands and belts along to the bawdy lyrics about a man’s various states through twelve pints of ale. It doesn’t take long for Morgana to start giggling. She peels Gwen’s hands off of her face and laces her fingers through Gwen’s, her palms warm and strong._

_Gwen throws her head back and laughs, letting Morgana guide her through the steps and spins. Morgana has been asking Gwen to dance every feast and festival day since she entered the castle’s service. When they were younger, Gwen had refused; she was never a particularly good dancer and felt like a stranger to herself in front of crowds. But Morgana was a bird in flight while dancing, free and fleet and smiling, and Gwen wanted—_

_—she didn’t know what she wanted then. Not in so many words. But she knew that she wanted._

_She presses her forehead against Morgana’s now as they sway. Morgana mouths along to the song, each of her words a light kiss against Gwen’s lips. The torches burn low, and the other dancers race in and out of her field of vision—bright skin and the whites of eyes, the shine of teeth bared in a laugh, flickering in the dimness. She pulls Morgana into a deep kiss as the last of the torches gutters out, searching for the traces of sweetness in her mouth. Morgana’s arms come up around her, and she kisses back with an equal fervor._

_They part for a moment, and lean in again. “May your year be blessed,” Gwen breathes into the part of Morgana’s lips._

_“And may yours be joyful,” Morgana whispers._

_The sky outside the windows is graying, the light bright enough to show behind the smoke. Gwen leans against Morgana to watch as the year turns. The other revelers stumble through a final set before they stop, giggling and clumsy from the lateness of the hour. At long last, the music stops, strings twanging as psaltery and fiddle and gurdy are set aside._

_Dawn comes. A peace settles over the hall, like the air after a flood._

\-----

Arthur’s coronation day dawns sharp and brittle as only a winter morn can be. Pages and maids have been bustling in and out of the room since before sunrise, bringing him his ceremonial mail and gauntlets and news of the latest arrivals in town. They hurry off as the sun journeys higher in the sky, summoned to put the final touches on the great hall. In the bell before the ceremony, it's only the two of them. Gwen helps Arthur with the lay of his mourning cloak, smoothing out the folds. He’ll change it out for a red one for the feast, taking on the blood and metal mantle of his line. His face in the mirror is a king’s face: resolute, like steel. It is only when he turns around that Gwen can see the fear in his eyes.

“Are you ready?” she asks him.

He takes a deep breath, lifting his head high. “As I will ever be.”

She carries his train as they walk through the empty corridors. Everyone is in the great hall now, or the courtyard outside of it, hoping to catch a glimpse of their new king. They stop outside of the grand double doors, and the guards stationed there drop into a deep bow at the sight of them.

“As you were,” Arthur bids them.

At his signal, the guards open the door. 

The great hall is more bare than Gwen has ever seen it. The torn tapestries have all been hauled away, making room for all the delegations which are scattered in the space—from Mercia and Essetir, Arthur’s father’s old allies, from Caerleon and Nemeth and Anglia and the Fens, whom Arthur had reached out to in faith. They have been coming all through the sennight and will keep coming all through the day, from all the distant corners of Albion. But their velvet finery and silk standards are drowned out by the sheer number of the kingdom’s people filling the room: farmers and shepherds and healers and carpenters, maids and scullery boys and stable hands and all the sundry in the lower town, lined up on both sides of the aisles and along the walls, trailing out the stow side doors and into the courtyards below, which are packed with citadel denizens standing shoulder to shoulder, craning their heads to catch sight of their new king. Gwen can make out among them Judith’s dark hair, Vera’s twin braids, Alis’ red curls. Sunlight streams down from the windows overhead, pale and reaching.

Arthur steps into the hall, and the people bow as one, as a swaying wave on the sea. His procession towards the throne is steady, practiced, his cloak flowing smoothly in his wake. Gwen walks the proper five paces behind him, keeping her eyes fixed on the dark fabric draped around his shoulders. 

The throne itself has been polished to a warm gleam, the cushions deep red and dustless. A golden crown rests on the seat, glittering in the light. Tradition dictates that a king in Albion be crowned by one of the Goddess’ chosen. There was no priest or priestess in the kingdom’s bounds willing to crown Uther’s heir.

Gwen stays at the bottom of the dais as Arthur ascends to the top step, taking the crown up in his hands. He turns and raises it to the assembled people, and the day sets it aflame.

He does not set it on his head.

“People of Camelot,” he calls instead. His voice rings across the grand room and out through the doors, skipping across the courtyard stones. “I wish to ask for your mercy.”

A current runs through the assembled crowd at his words. Gwen stares at him. He glances down at her and smiles, a tremulous flicker, before he looks out over his people again. “It is by virtue of my birth that I stand before you today,” he says steadily. “I come to you as the son of Uther, of the house of Pendragon, who ruled this kingdom for the past two-score years. It is as Uther’s son that I can hold this crown. And it is as Uther’s son that I must now repent.”

Far away, at the distant end of the lower town, a murmuring starts.

“For too long have you lived in fear.” Arthur’s voice stumbles then. “For too long have we been guilty of inflicting grief incalculable—both my father and I. And I cannot hope to pay full recompense for what my father did in the past. I can only start today with atonement.”

The murmuring grows—the clatter of feet and lilting voices echoing off flagstones and white walls, a multitude passing through the main gates. The crowd outside begins to whoop and clap, raising a shout to the sky.

“Magic is no longer banned in Camelot,” Arthur declares. “Let this be my first act as king—”

The clamor crescendos to a dull roar, like a stream after a heavy rain. Arthur raises his voice so he can be heard above it.

“—and let this be my final act.”

Gwen’s breath catches in her throat. The crowd inside of the hall starts to add to the clamor now, with their gasps and calls for explanations. Arthur’s voice is a half-shout now, but he keeps his words steady, sincere to the core of him. “Today, I step down as the heir to the Pendragon line. I will be here, as your sword and your shield in the days that follow, for as long as you will have me or to the end of my life, but I will not claim to rule you. The pain you have borne is too great for any other reckoning.”

He lets the crown fall from his hands. It clatters at his feet, shocking the hall into stillness. Footsteps sound on the floor behind them—

“From this day forth, there will be no king in Camelot.”

—and Gwen turns.

Arthur’s words ring in her ears as she beholds the two of them at the far end of the hall. Merlin’s eyes crackle, filled in their depths with unearthly flame even as they are clear glass-blue. The very air around him bends and shimmers, roiling with the force of a thundering ocean—and next to him, she is standing, forge-fire made flesh, with her hair cut close to her head and her cloak shimmering with the twisting shapes of beasts which seethe and snap, glowing in her glory.

But her smile is still the same. Morgana looks at Gwen. Her eyes are gold, and she is smiling.

Around them, people rush into the room, shouting and laughing and screaming _why_ and _when_ and _how_ , their voices converging into a howl which thrashes against the rafters. All the doors are pulled open, and all the dark hangings covering the corridors where the scullery maids are meant to hide. The hall is flooded. And along with the people come their voices, and along with the voices comes the light. 

Sunlight breaks. Across the columns, across the doorways, bursting through the lintels of stone and streaming through the cracks, enough to shatter the white expanses asunder. There is a singing in the air, high above the din of the crowd, inexorable. Gwen can hear it. She can taste it on her tongue—life, thick enough to coat her teeth. Life, sweet enough to drink. 

She reaches out her hand and begins to run.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! All comments are welcome. This work was written for the 2020 Merlin Holidays event and will be taken off of anonymous at the end of the fest.
> 
> I projected hard while writing this, and it might have showed. The soundtrack for the process was the live version of "October" by The Crane Wives and Daoirí Farrell's recording of "The Foggy Dew," put on repeat for four weeks straight. I highly recommend both songs.


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